The State of the World

Organizer(s): Geoff Henebry, Liz Mack, María Piquer-Rodríguez, Nick Cuba

Pandemics, armed conflicts, natural and anthropogenic disasters, and economic/financial collapses are types of systemic shocks that can manifest locally and then spread to region, to nation, to continent, to the inhabited planet. The recession that began in the United States in late 2007, manifested as a global recession in 2008 and 2009 is an example of an economic/financial shock. The COVID pandemic of 2020-21 is a more recent example of a shock to global systems. These shocks changed how households and institutions used financial resources, which then translated into impacts on financial flows and uses of funds, including land ownership, use, and management. Investigations of the incidence and subsequent impacts of shocks is important in an increasingly tele-entangled world. In this session we shall explore how shocks in one part of the planet can influence land use and land management decisions elsewhere. Topics include the lingering repercussions of the COVID-19 lockdown on agriculture and conservation, the push and pull of migration from Central America, how exogenous shocks influence land use, migration, remittances to rural communities in Kyrgyzstan and southern Romania, and how bilateral remittance dynamics reveal the diversity of international connections.

Organizer(s): Jonathan Sullivan, Zia Mehrabi

Land and the benefits from it are unequally distributed and trends are anticipated to worsen over the course of the 21st century (Meyfroidt et al, 2022). The wealthiest 10% of rural populations capture approximately 60% of agricultural land value, whereas the poorest 50% capture only 3% (Anseeuw & Baldinelli, 2020). The implications for society and the environment of changing land distributions include food insecurity, climate change, human health, culture and identity, and concentration of resources and power. However, data, insights and understanding of the risks and rewards that come with changing size and distribution of land assets remain limited in several dimensions. First, we need better methods to map and monitor changes in land inequality or consolidation at local scales, and connect those to global drivers. Stemming from this challenge are few studies that map the consequences of land inequality to those who benefit versus those who lose out, or provide policy analyses of interventions that can redress land inequality, equalize benefits, or mitigate risks. Given the prevalence of land consolidation and its importance, this session aims to invoke opportunities for Land System Science to contribute new theory, methods, and praxis on the study of land inequality. This session will bring together emerging scholarships on the topics of land consolidation, its determinants, and consequences. We invite papers that investigate i) methods to uncover various dimensions of land inequality, monitor, or map metrics of land inequality; ii) analyses that characterize drivers of changes in land inequality; iii) investigations on the social or environmental consequences of land consolidation with attention to the distributional dynamics at play and iv) policy analyses that identify pathways to ensure benefits and risks of these transitions are addressed.

Organizer(s): Heidi Hausermann, Katie Meehan, Laura Schneider

Land is increasingly understood as relational and interdependent, raising questions of how best to understand changes wrought by climate change, policy shifts, markets, and environmental injustice. This session brings together emerging scholarship on the diverse and changing epistemologies of land, especially vis-à-vis fresh takes on mixed methodology. We are interested in papers that: 1) investigate the types of knowledge and data currently privileged in land management and policy, and the implications; 2) creatively use mixed methods to tell nuanced and/or more complete stories of land and socio-ecological change; 3) provide innovative frameworks for understanding multi-scalar relationships shaping land dynamics; 4) examine ethical and participatory considerations in research relations and knowledge production; 5) propose trajectories toward more livable land futures through collaboration and creative practice. While we particularly encourage research based in Mexico and that puts land matters in relation to forests, agriculture, conservation, water, cities, food, and/or infrastructure, we are open to papers from diverse settings.

Organizer(s): Alexander Prishchepov, Simona Gradinaru, He Yin, Miroslava Bavorova, Suresh Chaudhary, Alexander Vorbrugg

Rural-urban transitions and other processes may lead to the 'underuse' or complete abandonment of farmlands and settlements, which become a widespread global phenomenon. Farmland and settlement abandonment can significantly impact the environment, landscape resilience, and societal well-being. However, the driving mechanisms of abandonment, the emergence of novel ecosystems, and landscape resilience in regions susceptible to abandonment remain unclear. Further, theories, methods, and toolboxes for measuring abandonment of farmlands are insufficient, which hampers understanding abandonment and its outcomes. Therefore, the session aims to highlight progress and discuss existing challenges in defining and measuring a great diversity of land transitions associated with abandonment, such as low-intensity, underused, or fully abandoned urban and rural landscapes. Presentations are welcome on:

- Conceptualizing land transition processes associated with incomplete and complete abandonment, such as secondary forest regrowth and evolving novel ecosystems, as well as landscape resilience.

- Coupling and decoupling of abandoned urban and rural landscapes.· Research methods and toolboxes to measure underuse, abandonment, and post-agricultural transitions of landscapes.

- Development of theories and evaluation of the driving mechanisms of landscape change, telecoupling, and policy responses.

- Implications of such transitions on the environment and societal well-being.

- Emerging land uses in the post-abandonment period.

This research session directly contributes to the activities of the Global Land Programme's "Agricultural Land Abandonment as a Global Land-Use Change Phenomenon." https://www.land-abandonment.org/

Organizer(s): Ole Mertz, Thilde Bech Bruun, Sharachchandra Lele

With the increasing focus on sustainable management of forests and using forested landscapes as carbon sinks to combat climate change, there has been a renewed research and political interest in the role that shifting cultivation may (or may not) play a role in securing sustainable management of complex mosaic landscapes. Moreover, despite decades of research on shifting cultivation, a rift between scientific communities studying shifting cultivation, development practitioners, and policy-makers remains about whether shifting cultivation has a role for safe-guarding livelihoods of local and indigenous people living at forest-agriculture frontiers. In order to address these challenges, and especially bring the scientific evidence on shifting cultivation into the development and policy spheres, this session aims to bring the large amounts of research in the past decades together in unbiased analyses that take stock of the persistent presence of shifting cultivation in many parts of the tropics. In some contexts it might be a highly relevant solution to improving sustainable environments and livelihoods as the alternatives are considerably worse. In other contexts, shifting cultivation may indeed play a key role in environmental degradation and maintaining poverty. We therefore invite papers that take non-normative stances on how shifting cultivation may (or may not) contribute to the global sustainable development agendas.

Organizer(s): Erin Bunting, Jane Southworth, Cerian Gibbes, Hannah Herrero

This session delves into the transformative impact of GeoAI and Big Data in land system science and remote sensing, aligning with the overarching theme of 'The State of the World'. It focuses on how these innovative technologies have revolutionized our understanding and monitoring of the Earth's surface. High-resolution satellite imagery and extensive data collection offer unprecedented insights into land cover changes, deforestation, and urban growth. By employing advanced GeoAI techniques, including machine and deep learning, we can efficiently process and interpret these vast data sets. This approach enables us to discern intricate patterns and trends in land systems, which were previously elusive with traditional analytical methods. Our session explores global research utilizing GeoAI and Big Data, particularly in sustainable land management and environmental conservation. We showcase how these technologies are redefining land system science and enhancing our understandings of land cover and use dynamics, the interplay between human activities and the environment, and the feedback mechanisms influencing decision-making and management strategies. This session not only invites papers focusing on the applications and challenges of GeoAI but also encourages contributions addressing data ethics and bias concerns within the realm of GeoAI and Big Data. We are particularly interested in discussions around how data requirements and AI approaches might inadvertently contribute to or mitigate the North-South divides, emphasizing the need for responsible and equitable advancements in this rapidly evolving field.

Organizer(s): Andrea Pacheco, Jan Börner

Understanding how humans impact biodiversity - the diversity of life on earth - has become a new frontier in socio-ecological research. On the one hand, a wealth of new metrics and methods to monitor biodiversity change have become available in the past several years (e.g., global databases such as Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), or global indicators such as the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII)). On the other hand, different research efforts are currently taking advantage of such developments to study the human impacts on biodiversity change or loss. In particular, because habitat loss is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, several recent studies aim to quantify and characterize agriculture-driven impacts from land-use change using a variety of approaches. These include life cycle analyses (LCA) or multi-regional input-output models (MRIOs) and the use of footprinting metrics, modelled biodiversity products, as well as other quasi-experimental set-ups that focus on impacts on specific species, or even pairing multidimensional biodiversity indicators with socioeconomic drivers.This session aims to spotlight recent, innovative research on these agriculture-driven impacts on biodiversity, specifically across the tropics, where biodiversity is highest. This may include improvements in LCAs or MRIOs, as well as impact assessments using new, multidimensional biodiversity indicators. We aim to discuss the questions: What do these new metrics tell us about agriculture-driven impacts on biodiversity? And, how do these impacts differ from what we know of land-use and land-cover studies? Moreover, we aim to discuss the causal implications of such featured approaches, as policies or interventions (e.g., the European deforestation regulation) may err in targeting footprints rather than the underlying mechanisms driving these. Overall, we hope to foster a discussion that moves beyond land-use/land-cover change towards deeper understanding of human-nature impacts, and the action points that can transform this relationship in the future.

Organizer(s): He Yin, Jamon Van Den Hoek, Lina Eklund

The impacts of armed conflicts on land systems through degradation and pollution, population displacement, and social upheaval are increasingly recognized around the world. It is crucial to monitor changes in land systems during armed conflicts to facilitate humanitarian aid, ecosystem recovery, and post-conflict rebuilding. The increase of spatially-explicit data such as Earth observation imagery, as well as social sensing has created new opportunities for monitoring changes in conflict zones where direct access is often limited. This session seeks the most recent research focused on comprehending the varied effects of armed conflicts on land systems. We encourage submissions that delve into changes in agriculture, forests, grasslands, urban environment, as well as other land systems during and after armed conflicts. We welcome submissions using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods on the topics below:

- Real-time monitoring of damage and destruction of land systems during armed conflicts

- The impacts of armed conflict and other confounding factors such as climate change and state policy on land systems

- Development of novel approaches that integrate various sources to better monitor the impacts of armed conflicts

- Short-term impacts and long-term legacies of the armed conflicts on land systems

This session contributes to GLP’s theme “The State of the World” by advancing the understanding and monitoring of drastic changes in land systems that are caused by the armed conflicts.

Organizer(s): Christoph Kubitza

While large-scale land acquisition (LSLA) in the Global South for agricultural production that took off around 2009-2010 has slowed down in recent years, new types of land deals are gaining importance in the wake of global climate action. The energy transition will need considerable areas of land to set up wind parks and solar farms. In addition, a recent report estimates that almost 1.2 billion ha of land are required to meet the projected biological carbon removal in national climate pledges and commitments. The LSLAs for agricultural production that took place in the two recent decades had mostly sobering socioeconomic impacts and led to severe human rights violations. With increasing land demand for climate mitigation, it is essential to make sure that climate action does not result in “green grabbing” but achieves a “just transition” through implementing safeguards on national and international level that prevent potential harm. This becomes even more critical since governments can present land-intensive climate action as national priority projects allowing them to bypass certain safeguards. This means that customary tenure systems need to be better secured to achieve sustainable food systems, livelihoods, climate mitigation activities, and energy systems at the same time. In our session, we intend to assess the extent of intended investments in carbon offsetting and renewable energies and their potential overlap with other land uses in the Global South. In addition, we will review impacts on the livelihoods and tenure of local communities in the wake of large-scale investments for climate mitigation.

Organizer(s): Andrew Zimmer, Lyndon Estes, Kathy Baylis

By 2050, over two thirds of the global population will live in urban settlements. Such rapid urbanization has the potential to transform rural-urban connections that include the flows of labor, economic development and food systems. Rapid urbanization is often coupled with changing demographic structures as young people migrate to cities in search of employment. Agricultural systems are transforming in response to the growing urban demands for food, fuel, and fiber, intensifying, expanding, and often changing in character. Alongside these dynamics, climate change poses a significant threat to rural agricultural production and urban livelihoods that can threaten economic security, leading to potential societal instability and conflict, especially when coupled with rapid demographic change. To understand and predict how these complex factors may influence socioeconomic development and political stability requires a detailed understanding of this nexus between climate, food, and urbanization (CFU). In this session, we seek to provide an overview of the state of the CFU system, the drivers behind rapid transformation, and identify possible future trajectories. We welcome interdisciplinary submissions from both natural and social scientists across a variety of regional, or global contexts. We encourage contributions that employ integrated human-environment systems approaches to assess elements of the CFU nexus, taking into account urbanization, economic, and demographic processes that drive changes and shape vulnerabilities within the system, as well as work that identifies possible interventions to promote sustainable development, resilient food systems, and stable political landscapes. We also seek submissions presenting new high spatio-temporal resolution datasets that can help analyze the CFU nexus.

Organizer(s): Qiangyi Yu, Liangzhi You, Qiong Hu

Agricultural land systems are influenced by the interaction between natural elements and human activities. Natural features such as soil, water, topography, and native vegetation serve as the basis for these land systems and have a significant impact on the feasibility of agricultural practices in specific regions. Moreover, human-made infrastructure, such as ridges, roads, canals, and other artificial facilities, not only directly modify the natural features but also alter the structure and functionality of land systems. Farmland infrastructure is present in both small-scale family farms and large industrial agricultural operations and exhibits a wide range of design and complexity. It can vary from simple, manually-operated structures to advanced, high-tech automated systems. Understanding the type, level, and quality of farmland infrastructure is crucial, as it shapes and provides feedback on the health and sustainability of agricultural land systems. This session aims to focus on key topics such as observation, simulation, and evaluation of farmland infrastructure and its impacts on agricultural land systems, while also fostering exchange and discussion within the GLP community.

Organizer(s): Pedro David Fernández, Jamie burton

Livestock ranching is a dominant land use in Latin America, with nearly 400 million heads of cattle and 150 million heads of sheep and goats spread across all ecoregions and a wide range of social-ecological systems. Particularly the expansion of cattle ranching into tropical and subtropical forests and savannas is of major concern in terms of frontier advancement, as well as a driver of biodiversity loss and climate change, but the spatial patterns and dynamics of these impacts are poorly understood. Developing and transitioning to more sustainable modes of livestock ranching is urgently needed across Latin America, but hinges on detailed data on which livestock systems are found. This is important, as different livestock systems differ considerably in the type of forage used, the landscape composition, management practices, infrastructure, and intensification levels, among other properties. They are associated with diverse social benefits (e.g., food security, income) and social transformations (e.g., reshaping of local and regional labour markets, displacement of marginalized people), as well as environmental impacts (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, vegetation degradation, biodiversity loss). This symposium aims to shed light on new approaches for assessing, mapping, and understanding the spatial patterns and dynamics of livestock ranching systems. The session will showcase a range of methods, including remote sensing and novelty datasets exploration spatial analyses, and bring together cases focusing on various scales, from local landscapes to ecoregion scales throughout Latin America. The symposium seeks to bridge gaps between land-system science, rangeland science, livestock science, and environmental history, to foster interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration, and to enhance our understanding of the complex and oftentimes misunderstood livestock ranching systems.

Organizer(s): Matthias Baumann, Ana Buchadas, Christian Levers

Deforestation continues to be a significant issue across tropical regions, impacting both nature and communities. Past land-system-science research has mainly focused on understanding land-use and land-cover changes (LUCC) to identify the drivers and consequences of deforestation. However, most existing research is based on reconstructing land-cover changes over time - for example forest loss - and not variables that describe land-use processes - for example fast vs. slow moving or active vs. suspended frontiers. In the era of previously unseen availability of satellite data and continuously increasing computation capabilities, satellite data and derived land-cover products can be used to develop indicators and variables describing land-use processes, such as the progression of agricultural frontiers or land degradation. These products provide crucial headway in contributing to a better understanding of processes of land-use dynamics. In this session, we welcome presentations and discussions on the latest advancements, limitations, and ways forward in developing variables and indicators that describe land-use processes with remote-sensing data and ancillary data sources at the local, regional, and global scale. We further welcome presentations that link novel variables and indicators of land-use processes to impacts on social-ecological systems, for example on carbon stocks, biodiversity, or rural communities, including Indigenous peoples. The session will provide a forum for discussing methodological and thematic advancements with respect to land-change processes, particularly tropical deforestation frontiers, that can underpin theoretical advancements of the topic.

Organizer(s): Laura Schneider, Leonardo Calzada, Mariana Benitez, Fernanda Figueroa

The construction of the Tren Maya (Maya train) by the Mexican government has been a great point of contention for scholars and communities in the Yucatan region. Major points of disagreement are around conservation and agricultural land use, and its effects on land tenure, and the livelihoods of local communities. Studying the effects of the conflict of conservation and development on land systems is not new, however current public policy on land use (e.g. the productive federal program Sembrando Vida), large capital investment on infrastructure development and the shrinking of conservation practices has resulted in changes in land tenure and increased forest degradation and deforestation. This session brings together scholars addressing issues around the effects of the Tren Maya and public policy on current land cover change and tenure systems. We are interested in papers that: 1) investigate the effect of Sembrando Vida and Tren Maya on land use change; 2) assess the changes in public policy in the region; and 3) discuss the multiple effects and feedbacks of public policy, infrastructure development and conservation on how territory is shaped and affect current land tenure systems, land management, livelihoods, and social relationships.

Organizer(s): Mayra Daniela Peña Guerrero, Daniel Müller

The session will explore how land use change and climate change contributed to the shrinkage of some of the major landlocked (endorheic) lakes. Endorheic basins are characterized by closed basins and predominantly occur in arid and semi-arid conditions. Climate change, including changes in precipitation patterns, prolonged droughts, and rising evapotranspiration, significantly diminish water inflows and alter the hydrological dynamics of these closed systems. Simultaneously, land-use changes, such as expansion of irrigation, higher cropping frequency, and wetland drainage, disrupt the natural hydrological balance crucial for sustaining terminal lakes and exacerbate the vulnerability of these unique ecosystems. By bringing together researchers from diverse disciplines and geographies, this session will foster a holistic understanding of the contribution of climate change and land use change in driving terminal lake shrinkage. The session will take off with a global overview, then feature examples from five major terminal lakes. The insights gained will inform sustainable management strategies and policies aimed at preserving the ecological integrity of these critical water bodies amidst growing accelerating climatic changes and growing land-use pressures.

Organizer(s): Kimberly Carlson, Matthew Hayek, Sonali McDermid, David Kanter, James Gerber, Paul West, Carole Dalin

Much is being asked of the world’s land to meet ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation goals. For instance, land is expected to store carbon reliably in soils and biomass while continuing to feed a growing population and support diverse and resilient ecosystems under a warming and more extreme climate. Government climate change policies, as well as voluntary carbon markets, are already shaping land use and management decisions. Specifically, actors are undertaking a diverse suite of land-based “climate actions.” These include clean energy production to replace fossil fuels (e.g., wind, solar, hydro, bioenergy + carbon capture and storage), ecosystem carbon flux alterations in natural systems (e.g., afforestation, reforestation, reduced deforestation, fire management, peatland restoration) and agricultural systems (e.g., optimized N fertilizer application to croplands, reduced cropland tillage, alternate wetting-drying of rice paddies), and forest management to manage fire risk under climate change. Substantial literature is developing around the co-benefits and trade-offs between such climate actions and other sustainable development objectives (e.g., produce enough food to feed a growing population). Yet major gaps in our understanding of interactions between different land-based climate mitigation and adaptation measures remain. Thus, in this session, we welcome research that aims to evaluate how different land-based climate actions interact with (e.g., compete with or complement) each other across space and time. In the process of addressing this aim, we will tackle questions such as: Where is climate action on land currently happening or planned for the future? How will diverse climate actions perform under a changing climate? What are the equity and justice implications of different climate actions? This session is meant to complement the Interactive, Immersive, or Innovative Session named Climate Action on Land: World Café.

Organizer(s): Gillian Galford, Marcia Macedo, Stephanie Spera, Brendan Fisher

South America’s Cerrado biome is a socio-ecological treasure at risk. Spanning 2 million km², this tropical savanna ecosystem supports 5% of the world’s biodiversity and a rich array of traditional livelihoods - from Quilombola communities to subsistence use by Indigenous Peoples and other traditional communities who have occupied the land for generations. Today, this biodiversity hotspot is also a hotspot of change due to growing pressures for agricultural development, conflicts over land and water, and afforestation projects anticipating global demand for carbon offsets.

Like most tropical savannas, the Cerrado lacks the international attention and legal protections afforded to neighboring forests. There is growing evidence that efforts to protect carbon-rich Amazon forests have inadvertently accelerated land clearing in the Cerrado, triggering rapid land-use changes that replaced over 50% of the native vegetation with croplands and pastures. Such indirect land-use changes are fueled by invisible processes, including a global bias towards forests and a hyper-focus on carbon as the main currency for establishing ecological value. Nevertheless, the drivers underlying hot spots and hot moments of Cerrado land-use change are poorly understood and merit further examination.

This session will convene global experts to discuss drivers and long-term impacts of change in the Cerrado, including complex teleconnections to global markets, local socioeconomic conditions and decision-making, and the historical context underpinning today’s conservation policies. We welcome contributions exploring how land-use dynamics vary across scale, as well as the implications of these changes for local livelihoods and future climate risk. Through a careful examination of the past and current dynamics in the Cerrado, this session of research presentations aims to enhance understanding and identify pathways for building socio-ecological resilience in the face of ongoing land use and climate changes.

Organizer(s): Ram Avtar, Yan Gao, Teiji Watanabe

Tropical forests hold most of the world’s biodiversity and various efforts have been made to curb deforestation and biodiversity loss. These efforts mainly focus on monitoring forest cover and carbon dynamics at local to global scale with the use of fine resolution to coarse resolution satellite data. The UN-Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) initiative, which aims to conserve carbon storage of tropical forests while safeguarding biodiversity also needs real-time information about change in forest cover. With the advancement of geospatial techniques, the quantification of the terrestrial ecosystem and their role in climate change mitigation has been widely studied. Deforestation and forest degradation contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Different from deforestation, which has established remote sensing data and methods for its monitoring, forest degradation monitoring is still challenging, especially with remote sensing. Recent conservation efforts have seen the result of forest recovery and enhancement, and yet monitoring forest recovery is also challenging on a larger scale. To increase forest cover and counteract climate change effects, forest plantation has been adopted by some countries as a strategy. Compared with naturally regenerated forest, forest plantation has less biodiversity and limited capacity to provide ecosystem services. To assess the effect of reforestation and forest regeneration in mitigating climate change, multi-spatiotemporal data and improved mapping methods such as machine learning play a major role. It also demonstrates the effects of climate variability on forests and biodiversity and how stable forests respond to climate variability. The goal of this session is to invite papers that are able to (1) explore the role of geospatial techniques to quantify terrestrial ecosystems in climate change mitigation, (2) apply innovative multi-sensor approaches to analyze land use/land cover change, deforestation, and forest degradation, and (3) integrate remote sensing and ground-based observation to improve terrestrial ecosystem monitoring.

Organizer(s): Julieta Carilla, Luis Daniel Llambí, María Piquer-Rodríguez

Mountain socio-ecological systems are very distinctive in biophysical and social characteristics. Land use, for example, is characterized by little mechanized agriculture, expanding recreational and conservation uses, and specific types of urbanization. Provision and regulation of water for both highland and lowland populations, high biodiversity and endemism, and elevation-dependent climate change add to the complexities and particular needs for research and monitoring, which must include an integrated and interdisciplinary perspective. The Andean Network of Socio-ecological Observatories (ROSA), a collaborative initiative started in 2023, seeks to integrate long-term monitoring efforts to identify, characterize, and quantify processes that influence the dynamics of mountain socio-ecosystems. ROSA aims to gather, systematize, and integrate existing monitoring efforts, facilitate efficient sharing of monitoring, management experiences, and conceptual approaches, and connect the knowledge derived from integrated monitoring to decision-making processes and the sustainable management of Andean SES. The objectives of this session are: 1) to share experiences of integrating biophysical and social monitoring systems into land systems observatories in mountains; 2) To understand reasons for success and failure of integrated monitoring systems in other regions of the world; and 3) to discuss a common agenda for the co-design of monitoring strategies and integration of knowledge between key stakeholders ( academia, decision-makers, civil society). For this, we propose a research presentation session including the following topics: 1) Description, creation and current status of the ROSA initiative, 2) Advances in key ROSA’s nodal observatories, 3) Participatory monitoring: place-based socioecological and transdisciplinary research. Experiences and insights from Latin America; 4) Synthesis of mountain social-ecological systems monitoring in Asia, Africa, and Europe; insights on infrastructure, data sharing, capacities, and governance, 5) open for public invitation. Based on the presentations and discussion we will produce a policy brief of good/successful practices for the integration of socio-ecological monitoring with land system observatories in mountains.

Organizer(s): Carsten Meyer, Rachel Garrett, Tobias Kuemmerle

The growing spatial footprint and role of conservation suggests conservation will be a central component of many land systems, with far-reaching but often weakly understood social-ecological implications. Similarly, conservation increasingly interacts and competes with other land uses, creating opportunities and challenges. In this session we explore the role of conservation in land systems and the opportunities of seeing conservation as a land use (e.g., as a strategy, as a policy, as an activity, as a land-use type) and addressing and studying it through concepts and methodologies of Land System Science. We also discuss the limitations of such a framing. We invite both conceptual or empirical contributions addressing these issues, including changes in the extent and intensity of area-based conservation, cross-scale interactions, feedbacks and trade-offs between conservation and other land uses, and the opportunities and risks of seeing conservation as a land use. As an example, the footprint of area-based conservation has grown rapidly over the last decades and is expected to keep expanding, given the ambitious conservation policy goals and targets formulated under the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework. The latter include targets to conserve 30% of terrestrial and inland water areas (i.e., “30x30”, Target 3) and to restore 30% of all degraded ecosystems (Target 2), but also to place all lands under biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning and land management (Target 1). What are the social-ecological impacts of implementing these ambitious goals? How could conservation be mainstreamed to be integral to land management and governance? How will area-based observation feedback on other land uses and the trade-offs among them? We suggest that cross-fertilizing between Land System Science and Conservation Science has considerable potential to better address and answer such questions.

Organizers: Garik Gutman (NASA HQ), Krishna Vadrevu (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, USA) and Chris Justice (University of Maryland College Park, USA)

Land-use/cover changes (LUCC) encompass shifts in both physical land-cover types (e.g., forests, grasslands, urban areas) and the human activities that shape them (e.g., agriculture, urbanization, deforestation). These changes result from a complex interplay of socio-economic, environmental, and political factors. Understanding LUCC is crucial for assessing environmental impacts, managing natural resources sustainably, and addressing challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate change, and food security. Latin American countries are undergoing rapid LUCC due to demographic and policy changes and economic development. Using remote sensing and geospatial technologies, researchers can monitor and analyze LUCC over time. Socio-economic analysis can provide an understanding of the land use processes. Together such analyses can provide valuable insights to inform decision-making and effective land-management strategies. This session will focus on actionable science specific to LUCC in Latin American countries. Actionable science involves conducting research that not only advances scientific knowledge but also suggests practical solutions and recommendations for policymakers, land managers, and communities to address LUCC issues. The session invites papers that focus on:

- Interdisciplinary approaches that integrate remote sensing and geospatial technologies to monitor land cover changes and incorporate socio economic analyses to understand the complex drivers and impacts of LUCC and facilitate the development of holistic solutions.

- Addressing policy relevant LUCC questions in collaboration with stakeholders, to quantify pressing policy and management challenges. Focus on identifying practical interventions and policy options that could effectively mitigate negative impacts or promote sustainable land management practices.

- Utilizing spatially explicit analysis techniques, including remote sensing, GIS, and spatial modeling, to map and monitor LUCC at various scales, mainly to enable the identification of hotspots, trends, and drivers of change, informing targeted interventions and decision making.

Employing scenario planning and forecasting methods to assess the potential future trajectories of LUCC under different socio-economic, environmental, and policy scenarios.

- Approaches that focus on monitoring and evaluating frameworks using remote sensing to assess the effectiveness of LUCC interventions and track progress towards desired outcomes for sustainable land use.

Overall, the session will focus on the use of remote sensing and geospatial technology studies that can generate actionable insights, contributing to more informed decision making, sustainable land management practices, and resilient communities in the face of environmental change. This research session directly contributes to the NASA LCLUC Program goals and objectives and the GLP Program. For more information about these Programs, please visit https://lcluc.umd.edu and https://glp.earth.

Organizers: Lina Eklund, Alexander Prishchepov, Nicholas Magliocca, Jamon Van Den Hoek, He Yin

Extralegal activities, such as armed conflicts and illicit economies, are increasingly recognized as drivers of land system dynamics and are among the most pressing challenges for sustainable development and social justice in many regions of the world. Laws and social norms are often suspended under conditions of armed conflict or actively defied through illicit activities, and the two contexts can catalyze or reinforce one another. Both types of extralegal activities can represent significant footprints on landscapes. This research session will advance theoretical and practical understanding of how armed conflicts and illicit economies shape landscapes and impact land systems, vulnerability, and resilience of landscapes. While illegal logging and land grabbing have been prominent issues on the Land System Science agenda, more attention is needed to understand these and other types of clandestine activity on agricultural frontiers, in conflict and paramilitary zones, drug production and transit sites, and in informal urban settlements. Similarly, there is a need to explore how land systems co-evolve and interact with cycles of violence, displacement, and environmental degradation associated with armed conflicts. The primary aim of this session is to collectively address the question: “What are the short-term and long-term implications of armed conflicts and illicit economies on land system functioning and their differential impacts on associated communities”? Of particular concern are the consequences to ecosystems and people further marginalized through these extralegal activities and how they change the functioning and configuration of landscapes, including land-cover and land-use changes. Relevant studies may include but are not limited to, remote sensing, modeling, spatial analysis, and/or grounded approaches and their integration to document/explain observed changes associated with extralegal activities. The submission of theoretical elaborations and synthesis works is highly encouraged. The session will be linked with the planned Special Issue in the Journal of Land Use Science.”

Organizer(s): Elsa Ordway, Ary Sanchez-Amaya, Isaac Aguilar, Nicholas Russo, Hannah Stouter

The tropics are experiencing dramatic changes as a result of climate and land-use change. Tropical forests will respond with shifts in carbon flux dynamics, water cycling, and species composition, resulting in feedback with globally important consequences for the people who depend upon them. However, the generalizability of different tropical forest responses remains highly uncertain. In addition, community engagement in tropical forest research is critical for positioning communities from the tropics to inform, participate in, and benefit from research about the region. Community engagement also has the potential to support the training of the next generation of scientists from the tropics. Ensuring that community engagement is equitable demands thoughtful research practices. We invite you to participate in an interactive session to learn about a recent effort to scope one of two possible options for NASA's next Terrestrial Field Ecology Campaign and discuss community engagement best practices. This session will comprise two sections: 1) The co-organizers will report on a white paper that outlines a multidisciplinary effort to address knowledge gaps in tropical forest regions’ responses to climate change that centers capacity building and equitable engagement with international collaborators. 2) We will facilitate space for the GLP community to express their needs and interests related to tropical forest research and develop action items based on these needs-with an emphasis on community members and researchers from the tropics. A structured roundtable discussion and breakout groups will address: Similarities and differences across tropical regions in forest structure, function, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycling, social-ecological systems, and disturbance processes, understanding of the vulnerability and resilience of tropical forest ecosystems to global change, the scientific and regionally specific basis for informed decision-making to guide societal responses to climate change mitigation and adaptation and biodiversity conservation, practices for fair and just community engagement and equitable collaborations, and existing barriers.

Organizer(s): Nicholas Magliocca, Kendra McSweeney, Eugenio Arima

Extralegal activities, such as armed conflicts and illicit economies, are increasingly recognized as drivers of land system dynamics and are among the most pressing challenges for sustainable development and social justice in many regions of the world. Laws and social norms are often suspended under conditions of armed conflict or actively defied through illicit activities, and the two contexts can catalyze or reinforce one another. Whether it is international disputes, internal armed conflicts, criminal violence, or the production or trafficking of illicit crops, land issues are often at the core, and agrarian communities suffer the consequences of these struggles. As researchers, we credit our in-country or community partners, but in many ways our fundamental reliance on them for our research is obscured through the publication process. This panel or roundtable discussions with stakeholder participation will center the importance of in-country partners for conducting research in land systems affected by extralegal activities. While transdisciplinary, participatory, or similar co-production approaches have been prominent issues on the Land System Science agenda, more attention is needed to understand the specific challenges associated with conducting land system research with in-country or community partners in extralegal contexts. Relevant topics might include, but are not limited to, land system research approaches to participatory methodologies, personal and professional risk, research ethics, or best practices/lessons learned in the context of extralegal activities. We invite presentations on the above topics from researchers, non-profit organizations, community members, or other stakeholders. The session will also provide an opportunity for dialogue and exchange among the participants, who are invited to share their own experiences and perspectives on this topic.

Organizer(s): Krishna Vadrevu (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, USA), Garik Gutman (NASA HQ), and Chris Justice (University of Maryland College Park, USA)

This session will focus on addressing the gap between research findings and policy implementation in the context of land-use/cover change (LUCC) studies in Latin America. LUCC presents a dynamic landscape shaped by diverse socio-economic, environmental, and political forces. The region is experiencing rapid transformation, with significant shifts in land-cover types driven by urbanization, agricultural expansion, deforestation, and natural resource extraction. These changes have profound implications for biodiversity, ecosystem services, climate resilience, and socio-economic development. Understanding the drivers, patterns, and impacts of LUCC in Latin America is essential for informed decision-making, sustainable land management, and addressing pressing environmental challenges. Although several national and international funding agencies have sponsored multiple projects over the region, there is a gap between research findings and informing policy, with many studies failing to translate scientific knowledge into actionable recommendations. Bridging this gap requires stronger communication between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. This session will explore strategies for translating scientific knowledge into actionable recommendations and fostering improved communication between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. The session aims to facilitate discussion on the challenges, opportunities, and best practices for bridging this gap to promote more effective and sustainable land-management practices in the region. Some of the questions specific to LUCC and to be addressed include:

- How can researchers effectively communicate their findings to policymakers and practitioners in a way that promotes understanding and informs decision-making processes?

- What are the key barriers preventing the translation of scientific knowledge into actionable recommendations, and how can these barriers be overcome?

- What role can interdisciplinary collaboration play in bridging the gap between research and policy?

What are some successful examples of research that has led to the development and implementation of evidence-based policies and interventions?

- What mechanisms exist for fostering ongoing dialogue between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners beyond the duration of specific research projects?

This research session directly contributes to the NASA LCLUC Program goals and objectives and the GLP. For more information about these Programs, please visit https://lcluc.umd.edu and https://glp.earth

Organizer(s): Robert Pontius

This three-hour training concerns how to measure temporal change and predictive error for a variety of applications, in particular for Land Change Science and Geographic Information Science. We discuss how to avoid common blunders and to use enlightening techniques such as Difference Components and the Total Operating Characteristic. Participants range from students to senior scientists. The training focuses on concepts, not on how to use specific software. Participants do not need to bring computers. This is the newest version in the series of trainings that Professor Pontius has presented dozens of times in 17 countries. Many of the ideas are in the book at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-70765-1

Organizer(s): Iván A. Ortiz-Rodríguez

In a world increasingly impacted by climate change and human activities, comprehending and simulating Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC) is vital for promoting sustainable development and effective environmental management. This training session, intended for a diverse audience, explores the use of Machine Learning (ML) techniques to improve the precision and effectiveness of LULCC modelling. It places a special emphasis on the Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm (Zhu & Woodcock, 2014) and the incorporation of reliable training data, while integrating the powerful capabilities of Google Earth Engine for data processing and analysis.The session begins by establishing a worldwide framework. It addresses the present difficulties and patterns in Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) and its significant consequences for ecosystems, biodiversity, and climate. An introduction to the fundamental principles of Machine Learning (ML) and its growing significance in examining environmental data builds the foundation for more advanced discussions. Following that, we will move on to a thorough analysis of the CCDC method, an advanced technique employed for the continuous monitoring of changes in land cover. Participants will get information about the functioning of CCDC and its connection with ML models for research on LULC. The quality and preparation of training data are crucial factors in ML models for LULCC. This workshop will discuss techniques for gathering, analysing, and utilising training data to enhance the model's effectiveness. Participants will actively participate in hands-on exercises, utilising CCDC with training data from real-world case studies, processed through Google Earth Engine. This interactive workshop is designed for scientists, practitioners, or students specialising in environmental sciences, geography, or data science. Prior acquaintance with the fundamental principles of geospatial data management is advantageous but not obligatory. After this session, participants will gain the theoretical understanding and practical abilities to utilise ML in LULCC modelling.

Imagining the Future(s)

Organizer(s): Sophie Avila

Social and nature interactions in land systems are constantly changing in time and space. This session addresses theoretical and methodological approaches to study socioecological interaction and their changes. Revealing the distinct trajectories of land systems allows one to better understand the different drivers of change and how these drivers determine the resilience of the systems and to visualize different scenarios and actions needed to face them. Socioeconomic, political, climate or other biophysical internal or external drivers of change can have manifold and diverse impacts at different spatial and temporal scales. We invite contributions that shed light on these systemic complexities with theoretical and methodological approaches such as dynamic systems modelling, social networks, adaptive cycle approaches, spatial analysis, qualitative methods and participatory methods. With these contributions, we envisage to advance our understanding of the role played by institutional, social, cultural, economic, psychological and ecological factors and variables in defining those trajectories across space and time. This will contribute to existing debates on the methods to analyze trajectories of social-ecological land systems. Therefore, researchers are invited to expose different drivers of change and the effects on the social-ecological interactions for analysing historical trajectories and future scenarios using different approaches.

Organizer(s): Santiago Izquierdo-Tort, Sophie Veronique Avila Foucat

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programmes have mushroomed worldwide over the last two decades as key economic instruments for natural resources governance, including forest conservation. This session aims to delve into the diverse global experiences so far and future prospects of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programmes across various countries and settings. Reflecting the meeting's focus on envisioning sustainable land futures, the session will explore the key processes, drivers, and future implications of distinct trajectories of PES implementation. By examining settings where PES have proven to be successful but have otherwise faced implementation challenges over the long-term, we aim to uncover the intricacies of funding limitations, fluctuating political landscapes, and other factors that are hindering continued deployment. We will also explore cases where sustained PES implementation has been achieved, highlighting drivers such as innovative financial strategies and policy frameworks that have ensured continuity and effectiveness. Finally, the session will highlight regions that are just beginning to implement PES, thus providing insights into the early challenges and potential pathways for these nascent initiatives. In line with the meeting's emphasis on forecasting land system futures, this session will discuss how varying PES trajectories influence the transformation of landscapes and communities. We will address critical questions such as: What land system futures are unfolding due to diverse PES practices? What are the driving forces behind these evolving scenarios, and which trajectories are most likely to dominate? Additionally, we will explore how visions for land systems and PES vary among different communities and stakeholders, acknowledging the importance of inclusive and diverse perspectives in shaping sustainable futures. We hope to shed light on the complex dynamics governing PES long-term trajectories, thus enriching the conversation on PES’ scope for achieving significant gains in land management and conservation in an era of unprecedented environmental challenges.

Organizer(s): Cristina Chiarella, Dilini Abeygunawardane, Philippe Rufin

Population growth, urbanization, investment, agricultural aid, and migration are some major forces transforming agricultural land systems in the Global South. Land consolidation and fragmentation, the growth of new production strategies in agriculture, and the emergence of new on- and off-farm job opportunities are among the effects of such transitions. Monitoring and measuring these transitions at the field or household level, the scale at which livelihoods and the resulting land use decisions are made, have remained a challenge due to the scarcity of suitable data. Recent advancements in Earth Observation (EO) data and machine learning and the increasing availability of multi-temporal micro data containing detailed agricultural modules are opening up new horizons for exploring land use transitions, agrarian development trajectories and the effects of land use policies. In this light, we invite original works exploring the following themes:

1) Methodological advancements in EO and deep learning to map, monitor, and measure farm size, field size, agricultural production, land use intensity, crop types, household assets, poverty, or proxies for such indicators.

2) Applications integrating EO and microeconomic data that monitor agricultural productivity, agroecological practices, food security, water security, labor trends, and poverty dynamics.

Organizer(s): Andrew Bell, Thomas Falk, Sarobidy Rakotonarivo, Wei Zhang, Hagar Eididi, Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Under many names (behavioral and framed field experiments, behavioral games, etc.), games now have several decades of both research and learning use in human-environment problem contexts. Games allow researchers and practitioners to center key dilemmas or shocks in the mind of the game player, putting focus on situations that may be rarely or never (yet) experienced, and advancing understanding for facilitator and player alike of how people will (should) respond to uncertain future scenarios. Games span a range of complexities - from pencil and paper, balls in cups, board games and tokens, through to computer-based games connected across networks - with each modality shaping what is possible within the game and how players’ attention will be focused. The flexibility with which different human-environment dilemmas may be represented in games (and thus the variation in what parts of human decision-making they link most closely to) mean both that games can be helpful in addressing a multitude of goals, and that it can be challenging to validate or benchmark the signals we obtain from game sessions and experiments. In this session, we invite presentations from researchers that do any of i) presenting novel empirical results or games that represent human-environment problem contexts; ii) consider how games connect to underlying mental models, existing theories, or other known benchmarks; or iii) consider the overlapping but often conflicting goals of games interventions for research and games for learning and development.

Organizer(s): James Millington, Calum Brown, Derek Robinson

Advances in the behavioural sciences and simulation modelling have stimulated growth in the use of alternatives to econometric and equilibrium-based models for investigating and understanding sustainable land system futures. These behavioural land systems models provide rich representations of human behaviour and institutional processes that enable us to imagine and evaluate possible alternative futures in diverse ways. Such alternative approaches include agent-based modelling, system dynamics models and Bayesian belief networks (among others) and allow exploration of adaptations of actors, feedback between actors and their environments, and impacts of specific policy decisions. Thus, behavioural models enable us to explore the constraints that behavioural, socio-economic, cultural and political realities place on achieving desired land-use policies, such as carbon dioxide removal and net-zero targets for climate change mitigation or habitat restoration and conservation for biodiversity. This session will bring together land system scientists to share and compare recent applications of behavioural models of land systems, including experiences of stakeholder engagement in the modelling process. Discussion will allow participants to explore directions for future advances and ongoing challenges to using and developing these tools. This discussion may include considering approaches to represent drivers of human behaviour (e.g. motivations or incentives, whether from social, market or regulatory sources), the importance of land manager and other stakeholder beliefs about how drivers will play out in future (i.e. anticipatory behaviour), and the effects of varying visions for land systems between communities and generations (e.g. farm succession). The session is linked to the BeModeLS GLP working group but welcomes participants from across the GLP community to explore the diversity of ways in which human behaviour can and needs to be represented in simulation models of land systems to imagine alternative futures, evaluate which futures are most likely to become prominent, and identify pathways to realizing desired outcomes.

Organizer(s): Christopher Wong

Models and scenarios are a key tool for the science-policy interface and disseminating scientific understanding of transition pathways to the wider public. To be impactful at enabling the necessary transformative change, models and scenarios should be coherent and explicit about their values and justice preferences. This is essential as biodiversity and land system research and policy exist at a nexus of political, economic and social debates over land and resource use and the allocation of the derived benefits. Our understanding of what just and value coherent pathways towards sustainability goals might look like from global to local scales, and which interventions are most socially acceptable and just, remain limited. New biodiversity & land use-relevant scenarios are emerging, including adaptations of the SSP/RCP scenario framework and scenarios generated through the new Nature Futures Framework, that foster new collaborations between various scientific communities. An increasing number of modelling tools are developed and applied to quantitatively assess these scenarios and support policy development. However, we require a greater understanding of the equity and justice assumptions and implications of this research. This session aims to feature new and ongoing scenario and model work for land use and biodiversity in various contexts from local to global scales with a focus on:

- Value-explicit scenarios designed to address equity and justice aspects of land use transformations towards positive futures for nature, climate and people,

- Modelling applications at multiple scales, designed to assess such scenarios or to support policy processes,

- Reflections on the role of values and justice in exploring various equity aspects in pathways towards achieving sustainability targets.

Our confirmed speakers will cover different aspects of how justice can be integrated into land use and biodiversity research including scenario design, Christopher Wong, IIASA, modelling and conservation planning, Camille Venier-Cambron, VU, and downscaling global targets, Larissa Nowak, SGN.

Organizer(s): Burak Güneralp, Jasper van Vliet, Yuyu Zhou, Robert Gilmore Pontius, Jr

As unprecedented challenges such as climate change, urbanization, and resource depletion continue to unfold, understanding the potential trajectories of land use and land cover becomes essential for fostering resilience, equity, and adaptation in the face of an uncertain future. Land-change modeling offers huge potential to contribute to developing a robust understanding of social, economic, and environmental causes and consequences of land change. However, much of this potential remains to be fulfilled. For example, the methods and approaches developed in other fields that utilize simulation and modeling (from Operations Research to Climatology to Physics to Health Care) such model docking or multi-model ensembles have still not been adopted in land-change modeling or their adoption has been very limited. This session will focus on the latest advances in theory and practice of land-change modeling. We invite contributions on novel conceptualizations and methods on land-change modeling, including but not limited to, accuracy assessment, recognition of uncertainty, hybrid modeling, representation of decision-making, and stakeholder involvement as well as applied studies that demonstrate the potential of land-change modeling for informing real-world decision-making and policy. We also invite contributions that offer constructive critiques of the field of land-change modeling. Such critiques provide much needed self-reflection that can help overcome existing deficiencies and outstanding challenges in advancing the field and enhancing its relevance to real-world challenges. The session will conclude with a summary of key takeaways that will be collected from the participants through a short online questionnaire.

Organizer(s): Pinki Mondal

Coastal landscapes are at the forefront of experiencing the effects of climate change. Globally, 2.15 billion people live in near-coastal zones, making these landscapes particularly susceptible to climate-induced hazards and long-term land-use changes. Exacerbated by sea-level rise, land subsidence, and coastal storm surges, seawater is reaching farther inland leading to ecosystem changes and permanent land loss. Increasing demand for coastal infrastructure, on the other hand, has led to considerable amounts of land reclamation. As such, future trends in the socioeconomic development in these landscapes will not only determine damage and loss in terms of population and assets but will also provide adaptation responses and sustainable solutions to these challenges. This session will highlight research envisioning a sustainable future for these complex and heterogeneous landscapes. Interdisciplinary research on the evolution of coastal landscapes and predicted future changes are welcome in this session. Research discussing a sustainable vision for these landscapes are strongly encouraged. Research may include, but are not limited to:

- Changes in natural and managed coastal landscapes

- Future of coastal infrastructure

- Coastal hazards and impacts on coastal communities

- Sustainable adaptation

Organizer(s): Robert Heilmayr

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) can incentivize communities to manage their lands more sustainably. However, many existing payment programs have suffered from a lack of additionality, paying for practices that would have been undertaken even without payments. Such non-additionality can undermine the environmental impact of PES or inflate their cost, weakening public confidence in the policy. In this session, we will imagine a future in which PES programs in land systems (e.g. land use subsidies, carbon offsets) are re-designed to ensure additionality, encouraging more just and impactful payments. Presentations will propose, or document the impacts of, innovative policies that have the potential to increase the additionality of PES programs. These policy innovations could take a wide variety of forms including, for example, (a) new methods to more reliably measure counterfactuals; (b) techniques for targeting payments to overcome adverse selection; or (c) mechanism design to elicit baseline behavior.

Organizer(s): Johanna Coenen, Julie Zähringer, Maria-José Ibarrola, Ceclilie Friis

International and transnational policies and agreements are paramount to address the root causes of environmental degradation around the world. Recently, two new governance initiatives have entered the scene: first, the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Targets (GBF), aiming to bend the curve of biodiversity loss, and second, the EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR). These have a strong potential to deliver positive outcomes for nature, however, trade-offs with social-economic development goals and unintended negative ecological consequences could also be expected. The telecoupling framework could be used to anticipate and report impacts of these governance initiatives on the ground, but also to identify feedback mechanisms and unintended spill-overs to other land- or social-ecological systems. With our session we would like to start a debate and bring these most current international interventions towards sustainable (ecological) development into the spotlight. The novelty of the GBF and the EUDR present a unique opportunity to follow the implementation and potentially positive and negative consequences for just and sustainable land system development in the coming years. The session will bring together 5-6 speakers, who will address the topic from different perspectives.

Organizer(s): Katharina Waha, Maria Backhouse

This session is intended to provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to share insights on the role of smallholder agriculture in future land and agricultural systems. Smallholders today have a critical role in local and global land and food systems, for local livelihoods and agrobiodiversity, and for climate mitigation and adaptation. Nevertheless, they face multiple challenges such as land and water grabs, vulnerability to environmental and socioeconomic shocks, and low capacity to influence national and international policies. We encourage quantitative, qualitative, or integrated approaches and methods, case studies as well as larger-scale studies. We welcome contributions that:

- Assess food sovereignty and food security in smallholder agriculture systems in different parts of the world, preferably so that we can compare across different locations.

- Present best practices and evidence of inclusive and just transformations towards improved livelihoods, land and water access, and political participation.

- Explore the significance of land rights and property regimes for just transformations. Identify drivers of smallholder’s transformations and progress ideally where conclusions can potentially be upscaled and applied elsewhere.

- Study changes in numbers of smallholders in a local, regional, or global context together with the associated challenges of data collection and analysis and terminology. Investigate the impacts of market-based solutions to climate change (e.g. carbon trading) and biodiversity (e.g. payments for ecosystem services) on smallholders in different parts of the world

- Discuss the relevance of climate-land interactions specific to smallholder agriculture, for example, impacts of climate change and variability for smallholder agriculture and the role of smallholder agriculture in climate mitigation.

- Focus on a political, economic, social, or biophysical element of smallholder agriculture that has changed in the past or is expected to change in the future with relevance to the way we imagine future land systems.

Organizer(s): Felix Krawczyk, Benjamin Stuch, Rüdiger Schaldach

We kindly invite researchers and practitioners to submit abstracts that explore alternative and transformative land use futures. These futures may help stakeholders to address regional needs in the face of multiple social-ecological crises. The conception of stakeholders on potential future developments is embedded in systems of power, as they shape what is considered rational and achievable. In this regard, prevailing power systems may constrain transformative processes in social-ecological systems. To overcome this constraint, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary participatory stakeholder engagement is suggested, which expands the space of possible futures rather than constraining it. Grassroots approaches, in particular, can represent embryonic forms of a different society, as they typically challenge the impression that there are no alternatives by prefiguring concrete utopias on a local scale. Furthermore, since their knowledge and visions are rooted in daily experiences, they are aware of the local and regional aspects which may constrain or trigger transformative processes in social-ecological systems and land use systems in particular. Participatory scenario building may enable the modeling and further research on the causal-consequences of those transformative approaches. Therefore, we welcome a diverse range of perspectives and insights that contribute to the exploration of alternative land use futures and the participatory modeling of land use systems. Examples for Research Questions and Topics are:

- Integrated land use modeling: How to develop modelling approaches for strong integration of local stakeholder demands and visions in land use change simulations?

- In which way do power relations shape the futures depicted in land use scenarios and their contributions to imaginations of the future?

- Discuss normative approaches that seek to strengthen specific alternatives and their impact on land use modeling. How can normative approaches enable land use transformations?

Organizer(s): Hisham Zerriffi, Rene Reyes

Land-use decisions within the Forestry and Agriculture sectors each have complicated dynamics that influence the achievement of a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Questions around carbon sequestration in biomass and soils, forestry and agricultural practices that can be part of “Nature Based Solutions” to climate change, impacts on biodiversity, ability to meet human needs for food and durable products, and much more can benefit from modeling different scenarios of the future within those sectors. At the same time, the two sectors can have complex interactions that go beyond simple land-use change from one to the other. Modeling these interactions is important and can help develop a better understanding of how these land-use sectors impact a number of both social and environmental SDGs. However, many models primarily represent one sector in great detail. Occasionally impacts on the other sector are presented as outcomes from decisions made within the primary sector being modeled. For example, an agricultural production model might report increases in land-use for the sector that result in deforestation. This session will present work that jointly models the two sectors to highlight both the opportunities for improved understanding but also the challenges and limitations of modeling the two sectors at once. Papers in this session can focus on either methodological developments (e.g. advances in jointly modeling the two sectors or improvements in representing cross-sector impacts for single sector models) or on SDG impacts of joint agriculture/forestry models. We particularly welcome submissions that tie improved modeling to policy-making at multiple scales.

Organizer(s): Melvin Lippe, Yue Dou, Rachmat Mulia, Hedwig van Delden

Societies and individuals are increasingly affected by global environmental change and are trying to adapt to it in multiple ways. These inter-dependencies give rise to non-linear, cross-scale dynamics that pose multifaceted challenges for the sustainability of social-ecological systems (SESs). Studying cross-scale dynamics and interactions are crucial for identifying interventions to overcome the key environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. Modelling tools can be of help as link social and biophysical dynamics within and between the levels of organization at multiple spatial and temporal scales. This allows for testing hypotheses and to examine scenarios that can support environmental management and policy design.

For this session, we are inviting contributions that present new vistas and concepts in how to assess and model complex land systems across scale using agent-based modeling, system dynamics, spatial statistics and machine learning, and spatiotemporal modeling among others. Submitted studies ideally cross at least two spatial scales (e.g., watershed and river basin, farm and landscape, community and municipality, etc.), and may consider other scales such as governance as well. Invited presentations can simulate the multi-functionality of landscapes and the ecosystem services they provide at different administrative scales, or simulate deforestation-free or tele-coupled value chains and their related land system interactions across different geographical regions.

Organizer(s): Robert Pontius, Rebecca Dickson

This session focuses on methods for quantifying the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions stemming from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). REDD projects aim to reduce GHG emissions by preserving forest ecosystem services via prevention of future deforestation and forest degradation. The REDD framework allows carbon emitters to compensate for (offset) their own GHG emissions by funding forest conservation projects. The success and credibility of REDD projects depends upon their implementation and the accounting system, which can take a variety of forms. Remote Sensing and GIS-based predictive simulation models are important tools to help estimate the amount of deforestation, and the ensuing GHG emissions, that would occur in the absence of the project - the project’s baseline or business-as-usual scenario - and, thereby, determine the number of carbon credits that the REDD project can claim to achieve. This session will shed light on various issues of the REDD paradigm, especially concerning the establishment of baselines, land change mapping, and modeling.

Organizer(s): María de Jesús Ordóñez Díaz, José Carmen García Flores, Diana Marcela Mendoza Salazar

The appropriation of territory occurs at different scales ranging from the plot, through the community, to the creation of landscapes for the use, management and conservation of natural resources. Imagining possible futures must include the collaboration of peasants, academics, politicians and citizens. To carry out land use planning must consider property rights, a gendered approach and local empowerment. This session will cover topics on the complex social, cultural, environmental, economic, and political relationships that occur in rural and urban territories. We will collate studies from Mexico and Colombia to facilitate exchange and feedback of themes, methodological approaches, perceptions, planning and instrumentation of socio-environmental research developed under a biocultural approach. The ultimate purpose of the session is to provide tools, such as biocultural protocols for territorial planning developed in indigenous communities, as well as strategies for the intrinsic valuation of the society-nature interaction.

Organizer(s): John Lynch, Aline Soterroni

There are considerable and increasing pressures on ecosystems globally. We must maintain and increase the capacity of nature to provide ecosystem services, from food provision and climate regulation to livelihoods and recreation, while minimising our environmental footprint and reversing the decline in biodiversity. Furthermore, there are expectations for transformational land-use change to help meet wider biodiversity and climate goals in tandem. Yet there are also criticisms that current scenario modelling is too narrow. For example, net-zero pathways that solely focus on climate solutions in isolation from their biodiversity impacts or national contexts often lead to significant amounts of land dedicated to monoculture afforestation or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). These actions are not nature-based solutions and can lead to detrimental environmental or social impacts. In this session, we will explore some of the conceptual and practical tools that can enable more holistic evaluation, addressing multiple sustainability criteria, and highlight case-studies of multi-criteria assessment methods that can contribute to achieving and monitoring genuinely sustainable land-use. We will highlight recent developments in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and scenario modelling, including Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), that are improving our ability to anticipate and evaluate the impacts of land use and management across a more comprehensive range of environmental, climate and social concerns. We will also discuss the need for more holistic assessments in policy design. Case-studies will highlight multiple, potentially competing, roles of land-use in national / sub-national policy commitments in different regions. Finally, we also invite studies that can demonstrate how theoretical advances in impact assessment can help address these concerns and aid policy design, from global-level (e.g. meeting international environmental commitments) to smaller scales (e.g. regional governance and project-level assessment).

Organizer(s): María Perevochtchikova, Andrea Muñoz Barriga, Ricardo Castro, Luisa Delgado, Gloria Yaneth Florez Yepes, Víctor H. Marín

Peri-urban spaces offer various ecosystem services (ES) related to the ecosystem's functioning (e.g., provision, regulation, support, and cultural ES). However, the use and exploitation of these spaces are influenced by the decisions made by social actors at various organizational levels. These dynamics of change expand to various spatial and temporal scales, even in broad rural-urban gradients. Therefore, it is important to consider peri-urban territories as socio-ecological systems (SES) that are complex, evolving, and adaptive. These territories change over time and space under the influence of various actors and internal and external pressure factors. To study them effectively, an inter and transdisciplinary SES approach is essential. This approach integrates the views from social and ecological sciences to describe, analyze, and study the complexities that arise in these territories. By doing so, we can contribute to understanding current and past socio-ecological problems and reflect on future sustainability, particularly in relation to ES. To achieve this, we propose bringing together interventions that narrate various research experiences developed in Latin American countries under the inter and transdisciplinary perspective. This idea reinforces the argument that an integrated vision is needed to understand the complexity of these territories, articulating views from different disciplines and collaborating with other sectors of society and knowledge. It is also crucial to understand the thematic diversity of these territories, such as cultural tourism, ecotourism, agroforestry systems, green infrastructure, etc., analytically, theoretically, and methodologically for its study. Furthermore, we must strengthen international and inter-institutional collaboration networks to achieve this. This session aims to reflect on ways to achieve sustainability or its multiple forms in peri-urban territories by understanding ES and their socio-ecological dynamics.

Organizer(s): Jana Zscheischler, Isabelle Providoli, Maria Busse, Maria Garcia-Martin, Narcisa Pricope

Questions of how to transform towards sustainable and just land use systems are characterised by a high degree of complexity, uncertainties, different interests, values and conflicts. In order to address these sustainability challenges in an appropriate manner, integrative approaches are needed that link the plurality of different types of knowledge and perspectives. Against this background, transdisciplinary and transformative research approaches (e.g. in the form of living/real world labs) have become central to sustainability and land use sciences. The inherent processes of co-production and co-design have been proposed not only as a mechanism to come to an improved system understanding by jointly defining problems and common goals with diverse actors from science and practice. By fostering mutual learning and negotiation processes for reimagining alternative futures and collaboratively identifying most promising transformation pathways, they also enable the co-design of just and socially acceptable solutions. However, the processes of co-production of land use systems continue to be challenging and multifaceted, and there is great interest in further developing and refining them methodologically and conceptually. The aim of this session is to advance the understanding and critical reflection of how co-production approaches can be implemented and contribute to tackle multiple claims on land by diverse stakeholders in a multi-scale, cross-scale or tele-coupled context. A particular focus will be on the embedding of co-production processes in research designs and different settings, innovative methods of co-production and co-design, and the various roles and responsibilities of actors and their knowledge. We invite contributions from different geographical regions to present and learn from the diversity of co-production and co-design approaches of land systems. This session is organized by the GLP Working Group ‘Co-Production of Sustainable Land Systems“.

Organizer(s): Aline Mosnier, Fernando Orduna Cabrera

This session invites participants to play a mini-scenathon to explore the complex challenges surrounding food and land systems. A Scenathon (“scenario marathon”) is a multi-country, multi objectives, participatory experiment developed by the FABLE Consortium. Using the FABLE Calculator - an Excel-based model with a flexible scenario design interface, participants will embark on an immersive journey to reconcile countries’ priorities with global sustainability. Groups of 3 to 4 participants will be formed to play a country. Participants will step into the shoes of representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment and Health. After an introduction including a quiz to get familiar with the FABLE Calculator, participants will review the national targets of their country and the global sustainability goals that all countries need to achieve collectively at the horizon 2030 and 2050. Then, they will test the different levers of the tool, design their own scenarios, and try to identify the best combination of levers to achieve both national targets and global sustainability and limit trade-offs. Groups will reconvene to collectively observe progress toward global sustainability targets once the new national pathways are aggregated to the global level. The contribution of each country to meet the global climate mitigation target will be compared to what would be fair using different concepts of fairness. Participants will be invited to share reflections on how to bridge the gap with the global sustainability targets based on the results of the fairness assessment and their country’s constraints. Can they increase their effort on represented levers of change? Can they rely on technologies not yet represented in the tool? Which other shifts — economic, institutional, behavioral—are required? This hands-on session will offer participants new perspectives on potential solutions and difficulties to act collectively to meet the global sustainability targets related to food and land systems.

Roundtable discussion with stakeholders from the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force Mexican Member States

Organizer(s): William Boyd, Marius von Essen

The climate governance landscape after the Paris Agreement has become more polycentric and sub-national governments and initiatives play an increasingly important role in implementing the international climate policy agenda. The jurisdictional scale in particular has been suggested as a potential sweet spot that is ‘small’ enough for solutions to be adapted to local biophysical and socio-political realities, while being ‘large’ enough to achieve outcomes at scale to contribute to system-wide transformations. Many sub-national governments that are pioneering jurisdictional approaches, such as Mato Grosso in Brazil or East Kalimantan in Indonesia are members of the Governors for Climate and Forests (GCF) Task Force. The GCF Task Force was founded in 2008 by a group of ten governors from Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States to address climate change, deforestation, and sustainable development. Today, the 43 member states and provinces cover almost half of the World’s tropical forest and are important drivers for sustainable transformations in their regions. The goal of the GCF Task Force is to harness and support the political leadership of committed Governors in the fight against climate change and deforestation, while empowering civil servants and civil society partners who are critical to building and maintaining successful jurisdictional programs. In this interactive session, we will convene stakeholders from jurisdictional initiatives in Oaxaca and the other Mexican member states of the GCF, including politicians, civil servants, indigenous peoples, and civil society organizations to consider the following questions: How can jurisdictional approaches reconcile the diverging interests and objectives of multiple stakeholder groups? What are the challenges for ensuring the longevity of jurisdictional approaches? What role can academia play in designing, implementing, and learning from jurisdictional approaches to land system governance?

Organizer(s): Morgan Rogers, V. Kelly Turner, Ramit Debnath

Facing the increasing complexities brought on by rapid urbanization, socio-economic disparities, climate change, and declining biodiversity, it is crucial to leverage land systems science frameworks and methodologies in the development of resilient urban land systems. A deep understanding of urban land dynamics is essential, as it provides the foundation for informing and guiding local policy and planning decisions towards creating more resilient urban futures. In this interactive session, our goal is to delve into how land system science can shape local planning strategies towards achieving more resilient urban futures, while identifying potential research avenues that could advance these efforts. We will begin with a series of short presentations by researchers and practitioners in the field, setting the stage for an in-depth exploration of the theme. Following the presentations, we will transition into a World Café format, where each presenter will lead a discussion centered around a specific key question within the session's theme. Participants are encouraged to choose the topic that resonates most with their interests, fostering deeper engagement and idea exchange. After these focused discussions, we will reconvene as a larger group to share and explore the various research directions identified by each subgroup. This format encourages sharing of diverse perspectives and collaborative thinking, fostering a multi-dimensional understanding of the challenges and opportunities in integrating land systems science theories and methodologies into local planning for resilient urban futures. Potential questions to guide our discussions could include: How can we achieve inclusive and equitable urban development via land systems science frameworks? How might land system science theories aid in comprehending land-use dynamics at scales relevant to local planning institutions? How can land systems science inform the creation of policy frameworks that support sustainable urban development?

Organizer(s): Davnah Urbach, Cornelia Krug, Ariane de Bremond, Natalie Chong

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methodologies are crucial in tackling sustainability challenges by integrating various fields of study and involving diverse societal actors, leading to comprehensive insights and innovative solutions. Future Earth, a global network of sustainability experts, promotes such collaborative research through its Global Research Networks and the Science-based Pathways for Sustainability Initiative. This initiative, particularly at the FE France Hub, focuses on enhancing the community of scientists and practitioners, improving research methods, and increasing support for transformative science. Our session will feature flash talks on experimental approaches like living labs, supported by the Pathways Initiative and the Wyss Academy for Nature, alongside experiences from Future Earth's research networks. GMBA, bioDiscovery, and GLP. Following this we’ll host an open discussion aimed to highlight methodological progress in transformative research, stimulate dialogue on improving the impact of such research, and identify challenges, opportunities, and key stakeholders in sustainable development. Reflecting on practices and the potential of a unified research community, the session will explore how to advance transformative research for sustainability. We also welcome additional flash talks on capacity building for transdisciplinary research, innovative methods, and evolving institutional frameworks to support transformative science. Through these discussions, we aim to identify ways to expand and strengthen the community of researchers committed to impactful, purpose-driven research for sustainability.

Organizer(s): Rishi Singh

This half-day workshop serves as an overview for the Unplanned Deforestation Allocated Risk Modeling and Mapping Procedure (UDef-ARP): a new, open-source software tool designed by Clark Labs, in collaboration with TerraCarbon, to facilitate implementation of Verra’s current VT0007 Unplanned Deforestation Allocation Tool (UDef-AT). To aid in monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, this tool utilizes GIS data to establish a benchmark model of forest vulnerability and empirically predict future risk of deforestation, expressed in units of hectares/pixel consistent with typical jurisdictional and nested REDD projects. During this workshop, we will discuss best practices for employing the tool through an interactive lab, covering topics of software installation, data pre-processing, analysis and interpretation, and troubleshooting for common errors. Intended participants include anyone engaged in REDD projects, carbon crediting, forest conservation, and land change science. This workshop will provide links to case study data and the software for participants to explore on their own after the session. By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to comfortably navigate and apply the UDef-ARP tool within their individual projects.

Enabling Transformative Change

Organizer(s): Pooja Choksi, Forrest Fleischman

In the recent past, a plethora of tree-planting and ecosystem restoration efforts have been initiated around the world with the goal of remaking global landscapes to store more carbon, as well as protect biodiversity and improve rural livelihoods. Ambitious land restoration targets by governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) aim to protect, manage and expand existing tree cover in forests as well as to plant trees outside forests, in places such as farms, savannas, hedgerows, and cities. However there is substantial debate about how these goals can best be accomplished, what their impacts might be and whether serious trade-offs can be avoided. Emerging evidence indicates frequent failures of restoration and tree-planting efforts. In some cases, tree cover gain outside forests accompanies loss of tree cover in forests, indicating potential tradeoffs between trees in different places with different uses, as well as the need for a clearer understanding of what factors facilitate tree cover expansion and influence tradeoffs. In this session, we aim to address this knowledge gap through a series of presentations and a discussion on tree cover change in countries around the world, including India, Nepal, Malawi and Mexico. Our session will shed light on not only changes in the distribution of trees, but also the potential tradeoffs between trees in different locations - within forests and outside of forests on farms and in villages - and between trees that serve different purposes, such as supporting rural livelihoods or biodiversity, and sequestering carbon.

Organizer(s): Samuel Levy, Leah Samberg

Non-forest natural ecosystems, which include grasslands, savannas, shrublands, and wetlands are vital to maintaining biodiversity, terrestrial carbon stocks, and traditional ways of life across the globe. Despite their importance, protections for these ecosystems are far weaker than for forested ecosystems. Non-forest natural ecosystems receive less funding, have lower coverage by protected areas, and are less well mapped than their forested counterparts. Likely as a result, large-scale land use change is increasing in many non-forest ecosystems, in many cases driven by expansion of large-scale agricultural commodity production. Multi-national commodity companies are increasingly expanding their no deforestation commitments to include provisions requiring no conversion of any natural ecosystems to achieve targets regarding emissions reductions and biodiversity conservation. Resultantly, there is an urgent need for better data to enable these corporations to monitor and implement their no conversion commitments. Improved understanding of the drivers and hotspots of non-forest natural ecosystem conversion is critical to assess the state and trajectories of these vitally important land systems and to enable transformative change and protect non-forest ecosystems’ carbon stocks and biodiversity. In this session we aim to bring together novel research into these issues and to foster discussion that can cut across the diversity of non-natural forest ecosystems and the public and private policies that exist to govern them. Potential topics and methodological approaches include but are not limited to: global or regional mapping of non-forest natural ecosystems and their conversion; assessments of the impacts of natural ecosystem conversion, including carbon emissions, biodiversity losses, and livelihood impacts; comparative case studies of land use frontiers dynamics in non-forest natural ecosystems; assessments of the effectiveness of public or private land use policies at reducing non-forest natural ecosystem conversion. We encourage research from tropical and non-tropical regions, as well as research that is qualitative or quantitative in methodology.

Organizer(s): Laila Berning, Andrea Pacheco Figueroa

Forest risk-commodity (FRC) policies can be evaluated by political science, economics, and forecast modeling. In this session, we bring together these different disciplines to holistically explain the development, design, implementation, enforcement, and impacts of key FRC policies in the forest and agricultural sector across the demand-side (e.g., European Union Timber Regulation, Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade Regulation & Voluntary Partnership Agreements, EU Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR), private certification) and supply-side (e.g., Brazil’s Forest Code, Amazon soy moratorium). In this cross-disciplinary session, we aim to discuss why many policy evaluations find that FRC policies have limited-to-no effectiveness in achieving explicitly stated policy goals (e.g., zero deforestation). We seek to explore whether such evaluations may misunderstand or miss key aspects of the policy design, such as secondary policy goals. This interdisciplinary session combines three key interrelated analytical perspectives focusing on:

- Policy design: explaining why and how FRC policies and governance mechanisms are created, designed, adopted, implemented, and enforced by drawing on regulatory policy change theories and empirical qualitative data collection and analyses (e.g., interviews, policy document analyses).

- Policy evaluation: showcasing ex-post impact evaluations of mandatory due diligence policies that help us understand on-the-ground impacts and effectiveness of FRC policies and governance mechanisms (e.g., reduced deforestation, leakage).

- Expected policy contribution towards long-term goals: demonstrating how ex-ante modeling can help bridge agenda setting (through long-term pathways) and policy design for international supply chain regulations, drawing on qualitative (e.g., EUDR-related impact narratives and discourses) and quantitative data and analysis (e.g., econometric estimates of potential leakage effects).

We aim to bring these three perspectives together in our final discussion. Hence, we welcome other presentations on any of the above three topics, but particularly those showing examples of supply-side policy evaluations not yet represented by our confirmed speakers (e.g., from Indonesia).

Organizer(s): Maria Piquer- Rodríguez, Lucía Zarbá, Martha Bonilla-Moheno

Maps of social and ecological processes can serve as a tool for sustainability planning in complex regions. They aim at integrating the intertwined relations between humans and the environment. Land systems encompass the social-ecological characteristics of regions and thus serve as a framework for understanding the interactions to inform transformative change. However, current efforts to spatially characterize social-ecological regions face important challenges in terms of coherent data availability and a balanced dimensionality (i.e., the social, economic, and environmental dimension). In this session, we will show results from recent efforts to spatially characterize social and ecological land systems (SELS) and identify the relevant components that define SELS typologies within Latin America.

Organizer(s): Julie Gwendolin Zaehringer, Armando Valdés-Velásquez, Pablo Negret, Gabriela Wiederkehr-Guerra, Svitlana Lavrenciuc,

This session explores the under-examined yet crucial role of buffer zones around protected areas worldwide, shedding light on their potential for sustainable land use, biodiversity conservation, and enhanced human livelihoods. As they are meant to buffer against threats to ecosystems meant to be protected in the core zone, they are frontier landscapes of critical importance. Despite their prevalence, evaluation of these zones in terms of their impacts and potentials have not received sufficient attention in the conservation science discourse. Currently, challenges arise from overlapping land access rights and undefined responsibilities for buffer zone management, raising questions about inclusivity and effectiveness. Land users living in buffer zones need to be empowered to become stewards of these zones. Furthermore, optimal combinations and spatial configuration of diverse land uses to enhance synergies in multifunctional landscapes need to be found. Buffer zones represent an untapped arena for experimenting with transformative relationships between nature and people. This session delves into approaches for managing buffer zones in tropical forest landscapes of Peru, Madagascar, Laos, and beyond and explores avenues to enhance inclusivity and management efficacy. Crucially, it examines transformative land use interventions within these zones, aiming to unlock their potential as social-ecological living labs. The envisioned transformation involves establishing a mutually beneficial coexistence between nature and communities, addressing both ecological and human needs. Furthermore, the session explores the collaborative management of buffer zones, emphasizing their limited spatial extent as an advantage for fostering partnerships among diverse stakeholders. A collaborative approach not only consolidates sustainability transformations but also positions buffer zones as models for development, offering insights applicable to other regions. Moreover, effective collaboration around buffer zones holds promise for reducing territorial conflicts around protected areas. Through examining buffer zones as social-ecological land systems, the session contributes to the broader dialogue on conservation and sustainable development.

Organizer(s): Marius von Essen

Governing natural resources sustainably while ensuring social equity and economic well-being is one of the great challenges of the twenty-first century. Natural resource governance takes place in complex systems and its success is influenced by a variety of contextual conditions, ranging from the biophysical to the socio-political. While several studies have investigated conditions for success of governance interventions in the tropics, the role of individuals, institutions, and their relationships are less prominently discussed in the land systems literature.

Civil servants and their civil society partners often call upon informal networks and relationships to solve problems and implement programs. Through the daily acts of problem solving, these civil servants also build capacity and form key relationships that serve as resources that can be used to solve other pressing problems. Their collective actions and the resulting (power) relations influence how governance interventions are designed, perceived, implemented, and maintained.

In this session, we want to expand the existing literature on state capacity and problem solving by further exploring how individuals, institutions, and relationships shape the design, adoption, and implementation of private and public governance for sustainable land systems. We will ask: what role do civil servants, civil society partners, and other local actors play in creating land system governance realities? How do power relations between local and external actors shape the design and implementation of sustainability commitment? To what degree does the international community account for the needs and challenges faced by local actors when designing and promoting governance interventions? By posing these questions, we aim to improve our understanding of the role of individual actors in land systems governance and thereby point to pathways for positive transformation and future research.

Organizer(s): Thomas Addoah, Joss Lyons-White

The expansion of agricultural commodity production poses a severe threat to global ecosystems, driving deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity loss. Private companies involved in the production and trade of agricultural commodities play a key role in addressing the challenges associated with them. Consequently, there is an urgent need to exert pressure on these stakeholders to develop policies and initiatives that can achieve structural and behavioural changes towards sustainable land use practices. While these companies in recent years have responded with a range of supply chain policies and initiatives, their impacts on achieving the behavioural and structural changes needed to transform the agriculture sector remains limited due to inadequate consideration of equity in the design and implementation of the initiatives, particularly in commodities involving smallholder production. With a growing global attention on the role of the private sector in producing transformations at scale, this session seeks to examine the design and implementation pathways of private sector initiatives within forest-risk commodity sectors. By delving into issues of equity, supply chain arrangements, and public sector involvement, we will examine: Under what conditions do private sector initiatives improve conservation and livelihood outcomes? What pathways (political, policy, institutional, etc) are necessary for achieving structural and behavioural transformative changes in the land use sector and what role can the private sector play in that, if any? The discussion will also explore the role of local communities, government, and distant consumers in reshaping the agriculture landscape. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, the session aims to provide insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with private initiatives, from their design through implementation, fostering a deeper understanding of how they can contribute to a sustainable and equitable future in land use practices.

Organizer(s): Maria Soledad Andrade-Diaz, Gustavo A. Maras, A. Sofia Nanni

Livestock ranching is one of the major uses of land in South America. Livestock management and ranching practices vary widely among and within regions, from predominantly traditional livestock systems that sustain local livelihoods to industrialized, market-oriented ranching systems with consequent differential social-ecological outcomes. Many of these outcomes are detrimental and many current ranching practices threaten to be unsustainable. Understanding the social-ecological outcomes of livestock production is thus essential to promote sustainable livestock ranching in South American forests and grasslands, many of which exhibit high social-ecological value and are under threat given the expansion and intensification of livestock ranching. In this session, we will explore the influence of different livestock ranching management types and practices on relevant social-ecological attributes of South American subtropical and tropical forests and grasslands, such as natural vegetation loss, fire management, biodiversity impacts, and human-wildlife conflicts, as well as social outcomes such as on livelihoods, justice, and actors resilience. Therefore, the presentations of this session will address the different social-ecological outcomes of different livestock land systems (such as subsistence, extensive, and intensive livestock ranching) to discuss emerging trade-offs, challenges, and opportunities for South American forests and grasslands conservation. Based on the identified social-ecological outcomes, we seek to identify general and specific leverage points contributing to their sustainability. While, broadly, livestock ranching intensification negatively impacts many social-ecological attributes, the session will showcase different responses to the assessed attributes among livestock ranching land systems, as expected given the complexity and variability of interactions between livestock-oriented production, local well-being, and conservation. Also, we will propose recommendations to tackle such complexity, such as integrated assessments and policies targeting specific livestock management types (and associated stakeholders), which are needed to reach more sustainable livestock ranching in South America.

Organizer(s): Talia Anderson, Andrew Zimmer

Both seasonal climate variability and the impacts of anthropogenic climate change - increasingly evident through unprecedented warming, droughts, and extreme events - constitute significant challenges to agricultural production. This is particularly evident among resource limited agroecosystems in Low- and Middle-Income countries (LMICs), where small-scale farmers frequently experience decreases in yield, food availability and income. As expectations and perceptions of climate emerge as important determinants for decision-making and agricultural outcomes, the field of climate services has rapidly developed to produce timely and tailored climate information that meets societal needs for adapting to climate variability and change. Our conference session explores the pivotal role of climate services in supporting and transforming agricultural decision-making processes within the context of LMICs. This session aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue among scientists, policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders involved in climate services and agricultural development. We intend to showcase cutting-edge research and practical applications of climate services tailored to the unique circumstances of smallholder agriculture in LMICs. We welcome interdisciplinary submissions from natural and social scientists. We especially encourage contributions that take coupled human-environment systems approaches and are focused on topics such as: Integration of climate data: examining strategies to improve the availability and accessibility of climate data in LMICs, ensuring that farmers, extension workers and decision-makers have access to timely, accurate and usable information. Decision support systems: showcasing the development and implementation of decision support systems that aid farmers in making informed choices related to crop selection, planting timing and resource management. Capacity building: Projects and initiatives aimed at enhancing the capacity of local communities, governments and practitioners to effectively interpret and utilize climate information for resilient and sustainable agriculture. Co-production and community engagement: Highlighting examples and best practices for engaging local communities in the co-design and co-production of climate services and/or programming to ensure relevance and usability.

Organizer(s): Rachel Carmenta, Julie Zähringer

Significant changes are urgently needed to preserve tropical forest landscapes where biocultural diversity remains high. Current conservation efforts often focus on in-situ site-level interventions that tend also to introduce ‘alternative’ livelihoods or income sources. The site-level focus and emphasis on the cash-poor risks perpetuating the misunderstanding that local poverty is the leading driver of biodiversity decline. Thinking that exonerates and under-emphasizes those (albeit distant) capitalized actors who are the greater conservation problem. This approach is ill-equipped to deliver either effective, or equitable conservation. We draw on recent proposals for Connected Conservation (Carmenta et al, 2023, Biol Cons) a conservation model that engages new tools to tackle distant wealth, in combination with on-the-ground conservation action to empower the knowledge, value systems, rights and cultural diversity of biodiversity stewards. Connected Conservation identifies, and works to diminish, three dominant flows from centers of wealth that disproportionately harm biodiversity. It works to enhance and amplify the three positive, yet presently marginalized flows that stem from biocultural centers. Ideally connected conservation sees actions operating in concert across scales (i.e. from biocultural centres to centres of wealth) to resolve key biodiversity challenges. This session draws on these ideas, bringing together experience of conservation action working to disrupt and diminish (in centres of wealth), with those that enhance and amplify (at the site-level). The session begins with an overview of the Connected Conservation model, before hearing from speakers that focus on actions at very different scales but each with a focus on mitigating two leading challenges: mega-fire and mining. We will consider the needs, opportunities and barriers to interweaving additional actions, and connecting them across scales. This will lead to a deepened understanding of how a Connected Conservation approach can bring about transformative change in conservation practices and generate effective and equitable conservation action.

Organizer(s): Andressa Vianna Mansur, Unai Pascual, Julie G. Zaehringer, Eda Elif Tibet, Lasse Loft,

The pervasive impacts of human activities on nature underscores the pressing need for transformative changes, in turn based on deep redefinitions of human-nature relationships. Recognizing and respecting people's diverse values and knowledge systems are pivotal leverage points in driving sustainable and just transformations. Transdisciplinary efforts that prioritize co-producing actionable knowledge and embracing relationality perspectives become imperative in addressing the multifaceted challenges related to land system sustainability. New tools and approaches in knowledge co-production to catalyze transformative change are emerging, ranging from participatory mapping and scenario-building exercises to art-based activities. This session seeks to delve into the evolving landscape of methodological innovations and best practices within the field of transdisciplinary co-production. The focus is on gaining insights from practical applications of methodologies across a diversity of social-ecological contexts, exploring their potential role as catalysts for transformations as well as their challenges. Emphasis will also be placed on presenting and discussing how to navigate and understand the complex power dynamics inherent in transdisciplinary engagements. The session will present learning experiences from a set of case studies both in the Global South (Laos and Brazil) and the Global North (Germany and the Basque Country) associated with the ongoing research project BridgingVALUES. The session is also open to researchers engaged in similar research projects willing to share practical case studies, showcasing insights, lessons learned, and challenges faced while fostering inclusive, collaborative transformations across diverse contexts, ranging from local to regional scales.

Organizer(s): Carole Dalin, Kimberly Carlson, James Gerber

Humanity faces the grand challenge of providing an affordable and nutritious food supply to a growing and more affluent population in a sustainable and resilient manner. Agri-food system actors - including policy makers, corporations, farmers, traders, and consumers - must meet this challenge while considering potentially conflicting priorities, such as environmental sustainability (including water, biodiversity and climate), economic viability, nutritional health, cultural acceptance, equity, and resilience to shocks. Understanding this growing complexity - which can involve global supply chains and difficult socio-environmental tradeoffs - will be essential for achieving sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. Given the extensive effects of food systems on people and the planet, identifying feasible solutions to transform current food system practices offers promise for realizing widespread socio-environmental benefits and for achieving multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals. In this session, we welcome research from all aspects (e.g., food supply chains, food environments, socio-cultural factors) and dimensions (e.g., rural livelihoods, human health and nutrition, trade, natural resource use, biodiversity loss & climate change) of sustainable food systems, with a focus on identifying and testing solutions to transform food systems. This scope includes studies employing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches to assess a range of outcomes from agri-food system solutions across multiple spatial and temporal scales, and the trade-offs or synergies that may emerge between them.

Organizer(s): Vartika Singh, Mario Acosta Herrero

This session aims to delve into the critical nexus between transitioning to healthy diets and the implications for food and land sustainability, exploring perspectives from global to local scales. A key focus will be on presenting empirical research from countries such as India and Greece within the framework of the FABLE (Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land, and Energy) Consortium with a juxtaposition of global assessments from Food Systems and Global Change group at Cornell University. With case studies from countries, we will be offering a comprehensive view on the synergistic benefits of healthy diets for both human health and environmental sustainability.

Objectives:

- Exploring the evidence on transition to healthy diets and implications for Food and Land Sustainability: Discussion on how shifts towards healthy diets impact agricultural practices, land use, and overall sustainability, with a focus on reconciling environmental goals with food security and nutritional needs.Case Studies from India and Greece: Presentation of research findings from countries as part of the FABLE Consortium, highlighting the unique challenges and strategies employed in these diverse contexts.

- Global Perspectives on Diet and Sustainability: Review of global assessments on the benefits of healthy diets, considering both human health and environmental parameters, to provide a holistic understanding of the issue.

This session is designed for academics, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the fields of environmental economics, sustainable agriculture, nutrition, and public health, as well as stakeholders in food system transformation. Participants will gain a nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between dietary choices and sustainability. The session will foster interdisciplinary dialogue, encourage the sharing of best practices and challenges, and potentially spur collaborative initiatives aimed at promoting sustainable, healthy diets globally and locally. Attendees can expect to gain insights into novel approaches, methodologies, and real-world applications that contribute to the advancement of SDGs.

Organizer(s): Forrest Fleischman, Pooja Choksi

Ambitious calls to plant trees for climate change mitigation in the UN Decade of Restoration may lead to dramatic land use transitions as trees are planted not only in remnant forest patches, or degraded forests, but also along roads, in farms, in cities and grasslands. Tropical countries are especially under global pressure to plant trees and restore forests, given the large potential they hold to sequester carbon from land use conversion. For example some models suggest that in order to meet global climate mitigation goals, countries such as Equatorial Guinea and the Philippines might have to restore (by planting trees) over 95% of their agricultural land. Trees on farms are considered a win-win for farmers and for the climate. As countries make large pledges and begin land conversion for carbon sequestration, the cruel question of food security arises. We are interested in papers that address this intersection of forest restoration and food security. How do large scale global land use transitions, especially in the tropics affect food production? How will this, relatively sudden change in land use affect local and global food systems? How can we better prepare for the potential negative outcomes of a changed local or global food system? How do we address possible social injustices of such land use transitions in the future?

Organizer(s): Britaldo Soares-Filho

Increasing demand for agricultural commodities is an important indirect and direct driver of deforestation in tropical countries. To this end, public and private interest has gradually emerged over the past two decades but has taken center stage only in the early 2020s. In particular, traceability has consolidated as a market requirement to eliminate deforestation from agricultural supply chains, and as such has become pivotal for regulating global trade. Growing pressure for deforestation-free agriculture products has led to agreements by large companies to exclude deforesters from their supply chains (e.g., cattle agreements, soy moratorium), commitments from China and the United States to ban imports linked to deforestation, and more importantly regulations recently adopted by the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) to enforce the import of deforestation-free products. The EU regulations require that companies trace the commodities back to their origin of production, at the same time proposing a benchmarking system to assign a level of deforestation risk to each sourcing country. In response to these ambitious regulations, private and public initiatives are increasingly seeking to develop solutions to trace origins of agricultural outputs and to identify whether they are linked to deforestation. In our session we will assess the legal, political, governance, and technical readiness for implementing the regulation standards and agreements, including monitoring systems already in place or proposed in both importing and producing countries. Although technical innovation is key to achieving thorough traceability, challenges also include the identification of indirect suppliers, handling of sensitive data used to check legal compliance, sales, and exports, and the need for avoiding costly private certification schemes through the development of public and transparent systems that ensure credibility as well as legitimacy built upon cross-country partnerships.

Organizer(s): James Gerber, Paul West, Kimberly Carlson, Carole Dalin

Implementation of climate mitigation solutions with human well-being co-benefits is advancing in multiple sectors, particularly transportation and energy production which comprise 15 and 23% of GHG emissions respectively. At the same time, there is far less progress for solutions in the agriculture and land-use sector which is responsible for 22% of GHG emissions. And yet, many land-used based solutions with co-benefits are already demonstrated to exist, such as silvopasture, forest restoration, conservation agriculture, or reducing food waste. Just as there are multiple barriers to uptake of these land-use sector solutions, there can be multiple pathways to enabling their uptake, ranging from mapping solutions and tradeoffs to better understanding and addressing social factors impeding uptake. Progress in the land use sector will be critical to meeting climate and human well-being goals and will be the next frontier in the transition to a cleaner future. In this session we propose to explore implementation of transformations to the food system that will achieve climate mitigation goals while also providing co-benefits for people and the planet. We welcome contributions that present science-based approaches to assessing tradeoffs between competing land uses and their contributions to climate change, economies, ecosystem services, and human well-being. Prospective studies, or analyses of on-going intervention, will be welcome. This session is proposed for joint consideration with sessions "Achieving Sustainable Food Systems" (Main organizer: Carole Dalin) and "Climate Action on Land" (Main organizer: Kim Carlson).

Organizer(s): Holly Gibbs, Kim Carlson, Robert Heilmayr

Expansion of agricultural production for international and large-scale domestic markets has led to massive deforestation and degradation across the tropics. A wide range of public and private sector policies and initiatives have sought to harness these supply chains to address this conservation crisis, but deforestation rates remain persistently high. Nevertheless, there is hope that renewed international pressure, including through the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation, could generate transformative change in rates and patterns of agricultural expansion in rainforest production zones and frontiers. In this session, we will explore the potential pathways for markets and international and domestic policy levers to transform tropical land systems. We will reflect on the last two decades of supply chain initiatives and consider their outcomes across commodities and geographies to identify lessons learned and anticipate their future effects*. We welcome multiple analytical approaches including economic analysis, field surveys, and data science to deeply interrogate how the impacts and role of supply chain initiatives have been influenced by the social, economic, political, institutional, and behavioral conditions, and what this means for the future. *I think it could be fantastic to consider splitting this session into two sessions with one focused on “the State of the World” for these interventions and a second one focused on “Enabling Transformative Change”.

Organizer(s): Pamela Jagger, Rob Bailis

Energy transitions are occurring throughout low and middle-income countries with varying degrees of speed and success. Some countries have made major progress with most of the population transitioning from biomass fuels to modern clean fuels, potentially relieving the pressure that demand for energy services places on forest and woodland ecosystems. In other contexts, energy transitions are slower and more nuanced, for example, population-level transitions from fuelwood to charcoal, which has different implications for land use change. Still others are stagnant, remaining heavily reliant on biomass fuels in the face of rapidly growing and urbanizing populations and missing or stagnant markets for clean fuels and technologies. The impact of energy transitions on patterns of land use change are poorly understood. While there is some evidence of localized effects on land use land cover change (LULCC) in conditions where biomass reliance is high and persistent, the effect of successful or partial energy transitions on LULCC is poorly understood. We hope to gain insights as to whether major energy transitions relieve pressure on deforestation and forest degradation and on the impact of partial energy transitions such as population-level shifts from fuelwood to charcoal as is occurring in several low-income countries. This session will feature analyses that combine sociodemographic data on energy transitions and high-quality spatial data on LULCC over time. The aim of the session is to provide insights into the coupled nature of energy transitions and the health of forest and woodland ecosystems. Confirming the hypothesis that energy transitions support healthy landscapes can provide additional support for investment in energy services, and understanding the role of more nuanced and slower paced energy transitions is important to informing policies surrounding land use and conservation.

Organizer(s): Ritwick Ghosh, Pooja Choksi

Offsetting has emerged as one of the most important mechanisms for financing forest management activities around the world. Funds are raised through compensation for carbon emissions or habitat losses and are typically utilized to avoid further deforestation or to incentivize eco-restoration activities. With the volume and size of offsetting expanding substantially in the last five years and poised to grow further, it is an important moment to take stock and reflect on the use of offsetting to govern land use transitions. Understanding the implications of offsetting requires considering the different institutional models for governing offsetting, from voluntary international markets to domestic regulated schemes. Across these models, scholars and practitioners have raised various concerns such as the risks to existing forests, the ecological quality of offset sites, issues of monitoring and accountability, questions of additionality, and the impacts on forest-dependent communities. By convening research on established offset programs such as in India, which has one of the world’s oldest national forest offset schemes, this session fosters a platform where scholars can share and learn from different schemes in order to inform future pathways for sustainable and just forms of land governance.

Organizer(s): Birgit Schmook, Alana Rader, Sofia Mardero Jimenez

Conservation-development interactions are intensifying in Latin America because of environmental and land-use changes (Zimmerer 2011). Historically, agricultural expansion in the region has been poorly regulated, resulting in the loss of high-biodiversity tropical ecosystems (Clark et al., 2012; Estrada-Carmona et al., 2014) alongside an inequitable accruement of economic benefits from deforestation that does little to alleviate poverty (Schatan 2002). In recognition of the current major challenges of increasing agricultural productivity, promoting rural development, and conserving natural resources during climate change, many governments have developed policies to simultaneously combat rural poverty and promote sustainable agriculture (Ayala-Ortíz 2008). In Mexico and other Latin American countries, rural development policy has been based on compensation programs through conditional cash transfers (CCTs) since the 1990s. The basic idea behind CCTs is to provide poor rural households with a minimum income to secure agricultural activities, children's education, and healthcare, among other things. For example, since 2019 the Mexican federal government has introduced "Sembrando Vida" as a flagship program to combat rural poverty and environmental degradation, promote food security, and mitigate climate change through the planting of one million hectares of fruit and timber trees in agroforestry systems. In Sembrando Vida, beneficiaries receive a monthly salary to maintain agroforestry plots, alongside plant provisioning from government -supervised nurseries, extensive extension services, and a structure for community learning. In this session, we aim to a) analyze how Sembrando Vida contributes to rural governance by simultaneously promoting smallholder agriculture and environmental protection; b) compare and contrast sustainable rural development approaches across Latin America; and c) discuss the most common trade-offs that arise from simultaneous support of environmental protection and household consumption and wellbeing.

Organizer(s): Adelina Chandra, Leonie Hodel

The relevance of gender in environmental and agricultural systems has long been recognized but has received limited research in land system science. In parts of theoretical studies, women are essentialized by portraying them as inherently more intertwined with nature than men, turning them into environmental heroines. On the other hand, they tend to be portrayed as passive victims of the patriarchal system. Such myths have later been relativized by materialist ecofeminist theories. Similar stereotypes can be observed in traditional communities and other minority groups whose livelihoods are directly linked to land resources. There is evidence that economically productive land use decisions are more often made by men. However, the resulting environmental and social impacts, for example, consequences of climate change, disproportionately affect women and minority groups. Women, in turn, tend to play a more central role in decisions that affect the well-being of the family and community and include aspects such as food supply, health, and care work. Moving away from exploitative and unsustainable land use practices is essential to address various climatic, environmental, and social issues. Promoting greater well-being and resilience requires a broader understanding of power imbalances, gender dynamics, and intersectionality and how these drive land dynamics and social outcomes. In this session, we will (i) gather evidence of the influence of gender on land use, (ii) conceptualize that influence, and (iii) elucidate what role it plays in fostering transitions towards more sustainable land systems. In highlighting the role of women in finding long-term and just transformations of land systems, we will open up the discussion for challenges and opportunities regarding gender, minority groups, and sustainability. We plan to allocate half of the time for presentations and the other half to discuss three general questions on research gaps, methods, and links between gender and transformative change.

Organizer(s): Maria Brockhaus, Grace Wong, Niak Koh

Tropical forests and forest lands are being claimed for a myriad of global, national, and local interests. On the ground, plantations for the production of commodities such as timber, rubber and oil palm compete with areas designated for conservation, mining, social forestry and other activities. These represent physical structures of selected interests, with flows of material, finance and ideas intertwined with the establishment and persistence of these structures. The flows through space and time are taking place through networks of actors, institutions, and discourses since colonial times, thereby (re)producing infrastructures of inequality and underlying power relations. The session uses a critical global political economy perspective to analyse inequality related to the globalisation and financialisation of forests, and the underlying flows of material, monetary and ideas that shape, and are shaped by, global forest governance. A critical global political economy perspective is explicitly concerned with those who carry the burdens in global forest and forestland governance and those who are marginalised by decisions over forests and forest lands in the Global South (Brockhaus et al. 2021). Our aim is to identify, together with the audience, pathways that allow us to break with the infrastructures of inequality or to overcome obstacles that would halt the machinery of inequality production.

Organizer(s): Sieg Snapp

This session is an exploration of realizing diversification of crops, agricultural systems for sustainable land use through partnerships with communities, public, private sector and civil society. Transformation towards sustainable agrifood systems is underway in specific geolocalities, involving a wide range of partners and approaches as seen from differing perspectives of communities in Nicaragua, Mexico and Malawi. Presentations followed by discussion engaging the audience will explore emerging lessons, challenges and lock in traps as well as both niche and broad based transformative drivers.

Organizer(s): Diana Sietz, Luigi Piemontese, Rebecca Spake

Land use policies are key for biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation and essential for sustainable land system transformation, and as such framed as a thematic research frontier in GLP’s new Science Plan. However, tailoring of land use policies to specific contexts faces a two-fold challenge. On the one hand, policies need to be generally applicable. These characteristics are sometimes enshrined in guiding principles. On the other hand, policies need to be adjustable to specific social-ecological conditions and actor groups. Overcoming this challenge is crucial to increase the currently low effectiveness of existing land use policies.

We aim to catalyse knowledge for targeted policy design and implementation by harnessing existing transformation options and levers that are sensitive to context. We envisage contributions on strengths and limitations of recent approaches and cutting-edge experience of policy tailoring in the field of agricultural land systems using a range of methodologies, reflections on various actors’ perceptions, expectations and transformative visions as well as guiding principles in policy design and implementation. In particular, we invite talks concerning the following questions:

- What are promising analytical approaches that can inform regional and intra-regional tailoring of policy measures/strategies?

- Which conceptual frameworks and guiding principles support policy tailoring at regional to global scales?

- How can land use innovations be developed and tested in living labs, farmer field schools and other forms of stakeholder-centred initiatives inform policy tailoring?

We cordially invite scientists, practitioners and policymakers to join this session. This session will serve as an initial meeting place for members of a potential new GLP Working Group proposed to focus on tailor-made land use policies for effective land system transformation.

Organizer(s): Aishwarya Levy Bhattacharjee, The Nature Conservancy, Siyu Qin, The Nature Conservancy, Paola Velasco-Herrejon, University of Oslo, University of Cambridge

The global energy system is shifting as nations urgently tackle climate change and strive to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7, ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy. Renewable energy, particularly solar and wind, has emerged as a pivotal solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring energy independence. However, its deployment often entails a significant land footprint, posing challenges to economic sustainability, social equity, and public support due to land use trade-offs. Poorly sited projects have the potential to create undue social pressures and threaten livelihoods that are highly dependent on the land.

In this session, we will delve into potential impacts on local communities and conflicts driven by the expansion of renewable energy, and explore strategies to proactively address them. Invited talks in this session will focus on:

1) Proactive planning in light of future land use change and social pressures associated with trade-offs;

2) Development of indicators for better spatial planning (e.g., using secondary data such as government census, peer-reviewed datasets, land use and land cover layers) to identify suitable sites while minimizing adverse impacts. These indicators can represent cultural, economic, or ecological connections between individuals or communities and the land and;

3) Characterizing social impacts on local communities via participatory approaches.

Recognizing that spatial planning alone may not fully address all community concerns, this theme emphasizes the importance of engaging local perspectives in the planning process.

The broader aim of the session is to inform decision-making for a responsible and equitable energy transition. We invite contributions that disseminate insights and promote discussion on proactive land management and integrative approaches to planning renewable energy. To this end, we encourage presentations that share findings, methodologies, or case studies on the assessment, planning and mitigation of land-energy system trade-offs.

Organizer(s): Manan Bhan, Pooja Choksi

The restoration of degraded ecosystems is expected to be one of the biggest land use transitions the world might see. Ambitious international pledges and national commitments, on the one hand, are evidence of its potential to achieve the ‘triple wins’ of fighting climate change, reversing biodiversity loss, and enhancing human wellbeing. On the other hand, restoration initiatives may fundamentally transform local land use regimes.

This interplay between the global and the local does not adequately take into account the worldviews and value systems being negotiated in local and national land use systems. How might such a land use transition play out at local and regional levels in dynamic tropical landscapes? What might be its intended and unintended socio-ecological outcomes? What sort of coalitions would determine these outcomes?

In this immersive session, participants will be asked to organize themselves in 2 or 3-person groups. Groups would be provided a persona of a key stakeholder group involved in, or affected by, ecosystem restoration initiatives, and asked to assume their roles. They will be asked to map their values and terms of engagement relative to other stakeholder groups through a value mapping exercise. They will also be encouraged to define their added value to restoration initiatives and the outcomes they visualize from their intervention on a gradient of its incremental, disruptive and evolutionary potential.

Groups will reconvene to exchange perspectives on these values and offerings in a debrief session. Through these discussions, participants will be able to visualize the key characteristics of each stakeholder group involved in ecosystem restoration, reflect on the groups where values and outcomes align the most, as well as the coalitions that may be required to bridge the gap where alignment may not be currently visible. Can values be relatively prioritized to achieve alignment? What would be the barriers for different groups with shared values to come together?

In this way, this session would be able to advance learnings on the broad value orientations of actors and how they play out in land use negotiations, the values that individuals/communities place on restoration that may come in conflict and the trade-offs that restoration practitioners encounter and ways to reconcile them towards a "triple win" scenario.

Organizer(s): Santiago Izquierdo-Tort, Meredith Martin, Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza, Laura Maria Arango Saavedra

Forest-based carbon offsets (FBCOs) are projects through which companies, governments or individuals voluntarily mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing “carbon offsets” produced through forest management practices. Significant FCBO expansion has been hailed by some as a means to incentivize and provide financial support for forest restoration and conservation. Concerns have been raised, however, over FCBO’s failure to meet purported environmental impacts and adverse social implications. A recent study claimed that 90% of projects in the tropics are not “offsetting” the amounts claimed. Additionally, studies have documented how FBCO implementation can contravent the rights, land use practices, and worldviews of Indigenous Communities, Tribes and First Nations (ICTFNs). Yet, a number of ICTFNs have also initiated or co-developed FBCO projects in their territories with positive impacts, including financial benefits, strengthening of organizational capacity, revitalization of land use practices, and increased access to and control of natural resources. As ICTFNs begin to engage more frequently with FBCO, there is a need to recognize and amplify the innovations generated by ICTFNs, and to provide opportunities for cross-learning and exchange among ICTFNs, researcher communities, and other relevant stakeholders on drivers of success and required safeguards to avoid risks. This session brings together the various stakeholders involved in a recently formed collaboration focused on the co-production of knowledge and practice in FBCO among indigenous communities in Oaxaca. This collaboration includes a multidisciplinary team of researchers and students from three countries -Mexico, the United States, and Canada-, the Integradora de Comunidades Indígenas y Campesinas de Oaxaca (ICICO) -an organisation formed, governed, and represented by twelve Indigenous Communities with long-term experience with FCBO-, and local community members. The roundtable discussion will focus on how the collaboration came into place, its main results to date, and the scope for such collaborations to enable transformative change for sustainability.

Organizer(s): Naia Ormaza Zulueta, Zia Mehrabi

Invited presenters include:

Prof David R. Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment

Prof Joyeeta Gupta, University of Amsterdam

Dr Laura Catrejon-Violante, University of British Columbia

Naia Ormaza-Zulueta, University of Colorado, Boulder

This session will explore the intersection of Human Rights and Environmental Health, from a legal and scientific standpoint, in light of the UN General Assembly's resolution recognising the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment in July 2022. We aim to bring together lawyers and scientists to improve our capacity to map, monitor and act on human environmental rights violations across the world.

We will begin our session with experts from both environmental law and science. We will ask lawyers what are the major gaps that scientists need to fill to support existing law and policy, and, the scientists, what are the major gaps they see in the existing law and policy environment in acting on scientific knowledge.

We will then work with attendees to discuss the ways that action on environmental injustices across different scales - global, regional, local, can be supported by the land system science community. We welcome input from experts on food security, water security, biodiversity, clean air, non-toxic environments, and safe climate to exchange views on the importance, kinds, and real-world uses of science for the realization of these rights. We will look at the practical and strategic applications for legal investigations, environmental justice advocacy, identifying gaps in present approaches, reviewing future technology, and brainstorming ideas for moving the field forward.

We expect participants to actively engage, provide fresh perspectives, and collaborate on novel pathways to merging law and science. Our objective is to develop a list of improvements in mapping and monitoring approaches and techniques, and potential research directions, where the role of the land system science community will be emphasized. These outcomes are expected to enhance our understanding of environmental human rights violations and their interaction with social dimensions, contributing to a more informed approach to these issues in line with the conference's theme of transformative changes.

We welcome one and all!

Organizer(s): Patrick Meyfroidt

Land system and sustainability challenges, related to food security, livelihoods, conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, energy transition, and relational values with land, are embedded within broader societal dynamics. Three contemporary societal dynamics interact and make sustainability challenges even more wicked, while also reflecting the failures of governments, societies, and science to develop just and effective solutions to these challenges. First, the rise of authoritarianism and populism makes it harder to achieve just and inclusive solutions, and to acknowledge and thus manage hard tradeoffs. Second, the crisis of rationality, knowledge and legitimacy of expertise makes it harder to use rationality and scientific knowledge as a part of the inputs needed in these debates, including the scholarly approaches that bridge multiple forms of knowledge. Third, algorithmic social media provides tools for spreading disinformation and anti-democratic discourses that generate "engagement", but also opportunities for social movements and citizens worldwide to exchange and organize around sustainability issues. Mediation by social networks and digital tools also modifies the experiential relation with nature. These dynamics have been analyzed but an explicit connection with land system issues remains lacking. The goal of this session is to open a discussion about interlinkages between these three dynamics and land use and land systems challenges: how they affect land systems, how land systems play a role in these three dynamics, and how to account for these when developing and implementing solutions to sustainability issues involving land systems. The session will feature short introductions (max. 3 x 5'), followed by a World Cafe session organized in two steps, where people will rotate across three tables to discuss first linkages between each individual dynamic and land systems, and then interlinkages between these three dynamics and land systems. The outcomes depend on the engagement and decisions of participants.

Organizer(s): Van Thi Hai Nguyen, Margaret Owuor, Peter Messerli, Julie Zähringer

The call for transformative governance in biodiversity conservation is growing. The shift in global biodiversity governance focuses on scrutinizing and facilitating more involvement of non-traditional actors and interactions between public and private entities in intergovernmental processes from bottom-up, rather than just legal regimes and state practices. The `whole society approach` is being globally adopted as central to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). According to the CBD Action Agenda Pledges for Nature and People, not just state members and international organizations, more and more sub-national authorities, businesses, indigenous people and local communities, and other middle-out actors such as NGOs and researchers are participating in intergovernmental processes and taking actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. The challenges include translating the approach into local practice, dealing with unintended consequences (such as green-washing or cross-sectoral leakages), reorganizing coexisting institutions at different levels, and fostering innovation in governance and policy solutions. We argue that a whole society approach can also be a "nobody" approach. To enable actors to work together, it is necessary to distribute 'governance capacity' among them in three domains: enabling rules of the game, converging discourses, and facilitating essential resources. This will enable actors to work in an environment of polycentricity, accountability, transparency, justice, equity, and sustainability. The session aims to outline the ongoing theoretical debates, conceptual innovation in biodiversity governance, as well as empirical evidence on how this approach is being adopted in different contexts, understanding the role of actors, especially non-state actors, their interaction within their social networks, and their agency in co-designing solutions. We invite experts from various disciplines and sectors to present research, share experiences, discuss policy implications, and discuss moving the GBF forward in practice. This will foster collaboration and knowledge sharing to build a coalition for change.

Organizer(s): O. Ravaka Andriamihaja, Gabriela Gonzales

In an era marked by rapid globalization, environmental transformations, and cultural shifts, there is a critical imperative to (re-)establish positive ways of relating to the environment that celebrate and safeguard territories and landscapes. This session aims to highlight transformative pathways towards this symbiosis of human activity and environment towards that draw on the invaluable contributions of Indigenous and local knowledge systems. Worldwide, Indigenous and local communities’ deep connections with knowledge about the natural world can play an important role in innovative solutions to today's global challenges. However, these insights often remain neglected due to their narrative form, which differs from the conventional communication of Western science and policy. In this interactive session, we propose to promote storytelling as a powerful tool to convey Indigenous and local knowledge, but also to serve as a bridge between different knowledge systems. We will invite Indigenous and local knowledge holders, researchers, and practitioners to embody the protagonists of tropical forest territories and landscapes from around the world in a role-play exercise. By embracing diverse narrative formats, such as images, drawings, videos, sounds, and songs, we aim to unlock the richness of Indigenous and local knowledge and delve into multifaceted stories of hope, resilience, and transformation. With this session, we ultimately aim to challenge mainstream communication paradigms and foster a space where different knowledge systems are celebrated as complementary drivers for territory and landscape transformation. We propose a storytelling session of maximum 15 minutes per storyteller, with questions and answers. The storytelling session emulates a traditional story with a beginning, a body and an end featuring authentic characters to illustrate a specific theme. We envisage a lively exchange of stories of hope, generating innovative lessons and recommendations for transformation of tropical forests, providing scientific input and practical implications for research, policy, and practice.

Organizer(s): Gabriela Gonzales Malca, O. Ravaka Andriamihaja

Food systems and the changes they are undergoing are key to understand Indigenous people’s livelihoods and identity, but also the relationships and connections they maintain with nature, with their ancestors, and with the other people who inhabit their territories. Indigenous food systems are currently threatened by the degradation of natural habitats, the loss of biodiversity, territorial dispossession, excessive extractive activities and loss of cultural identity. In this session, we aim to explore the role of different territorial governance schemes and measures, including conservation initiatives, on Indigenous food systems and food sovereignty.

We will facilitate a conversation in break-out groups using a World Café format along four topics: 1) transformations in Indigenous food systems over time; 2) impacts of territorial governance schemes on Indigenous food systems; 3) compatibility of conservation initiatives and governance schemes with Indigenous food systems; and 4) actual progress towards Indigenous food sovereignty.

The session will shed light on the interconnections and causal relationships between different territorial governance schemes and Indigenous food systems, and their ultimate impacts on food sovereignty. untangle the interconnected relationships between Indigenous food systems and different territorial governance schemes. We hope to come up with useful recommendations towards a more fair and sustainable governance in Indigenous territories. We invite interested panelists to present their abstract related with the topics and with their territorial experiences.

Key words: Food systems, just territorial governance, Indigenous people.

Organizer(s): Siyu Qin, Aishwarya Bhattacharjee

With global commitments to expand renewable energy and conservation areas, how can we better integrate local voices in regional and national spatial planning? During this 1.5 hour interactive session, we invite attendees to discuss best practices, major challenges, and possible ways forward to integrate social values (i.e., cultural, economic, and ecological indicators that represent connections and dependencies between people and the land) and relevant actors into mapping efforts for conservation and development planning. The session will commence with brief “elevator pitch” type talks (20 min) on existing practices, spatial planning tools, frameworks that are used to include and integrate social values. Confirmed cases include community participation (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2018.09.002) and social vulnerability/risk assessments (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.07.006), with more cases to be included pending on the participants. The session continues into a dynamic "World Café" format (30 min) in which participants will break into groups to discuss the challenges in bringing local voices to planning across diverse scales and systems. Specifically, the discussions will be divided into subgroups on:

- Knowledge & Methods - best practices and critical gaps,

- Funding and resources - sources, distribution, and obstacles,

- Policy - existing institutional resources and restrictions, within the context of integrating local voices into national and regional planning processes.

After the discussion, groups will report back (15min), and then regroup to discuss (15min) how to connect relevant solutions across the three topics to bring local voices/social values to national planning process such as the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. The outcome of this session will be a document (e.g., perspective, policy brief) of recommended tools, frameworks, datasets, and methods to integrate social values into regional, national, and local planning processes, as well as recommendations of how to coordinate between sustainable development and socioecological conservation priorities within the evolving landscape.

Organizer(s): Victoria Junquera, Sara Constantino, Dilini Abeygunawardane

Markets play a central role in the use and governance of natural resources, yet our understanding of markets is limited. While there have been many attempts to model the “role of the market” in land system dynamics with various degrees of success, this very formulation highlights a shortcoming that this session aims to redress: rather than conceptualizing and reifying markets as entities with a life and laws of their own, this session aims to encourage the examination of the embedded nature of markets in all aspects of society, the emergence of markets in time and space as an active process facilitated by agents and institutions, and the co-evolution of markets and land systems - one such example is the joint and mutually reinforcing expansion of agricultural frontiers and local commodity markets. Understanding these dynamics is particularly important for the governance of social-ecological regime shifts and more generally for strategic efforts to transform society towards a more sustainable pathway. In this session, we invite researchers and practitioners with diverse backgrounds who are interested in topics such as 1) advancing the theoretical understanding of markets, thus problematizing conceptions of “The Market” as an exogenous force; 2) examining markets and land systems as embedded and co-evolving complex systems with properties such as emergence, multi-scale dynamics, or the occurrence of regime shifts; and 3) the implications for land system governance, for example identifying intervention windows or early warnings of tipping points. The session will include a 5-person panel from different disciplines to present “provocations” (short presentations) aimed at stimulating active conversation and seeding discussion among attendees. We will also create an interacting “living” document during this session. We hope the session could thus be a starting point for a (1) new epistemic community that will extend beyond this meeting and a (2) collaborative perspective piece.

Organizer(s): Kimberly Carlson, Matthew Hayek, Sonali McDermid, David Kanter, James Gerber, Paul West, Carole Dalin

How to manage the multiple roles of land in climate action - including mitigation and adaptation - is a central challenge facing humanity. Ideally, climate action will be both effective and equitable, minimizing trade-offs and maximizing co-benefits across a range of sustainable development objectives. Yet, there are major gaps in our understanding of climate actions. For example, the rising prevalence of climate extremes and rapidly changing environmental conditions may constrain realized land-based carbon sequestration, but remain largely unaccounted for in assessed potentials. The existence of possible synergies between carbon storage and certain food production systems and trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation are increasingly acknowledged but large biophysical and socioeconomic uncertainties remain. Additionally, developing large-area renewable energy projects or mining for minerals critical to the clean energy transition may incur socio-economic trade-offs that are unevenly distributed. The goal of this interactive session is to support development of a rigorous and comprehensive framework to evaluate multiple land-based climate action measures across dimensions of effectiveness, co-benefits, and trade-offs. To meet this goal, we will host a large-group dialogue in World Cafe format. After a welcome from session organizers, participants will discuss three questions in small group settings, moving to a new group for each question. At the end of the session, individuals will share insights from their conversations with the larger group. These insights will be recorded graphically and the graphic representation will be displayed for the remainder of the meeting (we hope!) in a public location for all to see. We warmly welcome all interested participants to join our session! This session is meant to complement the Research Presentation Session named Climate Action on Land: Research Presentations.

Organizer(s): Erle C. Ellis, Ariane de Bremond, Patrick Meyfroidt

As the unprecedented environmental damage caused by contemporary human societies threatens the future of both people and the rest of life on this planet, debates are heating up about the social changes required to change course toward a better future. This special session brings together known advocates of different sides of these debates with the objective of clarifying their pathways, propositions, differences, and plausibility as strategies for achieving a just and sustainable global land system transition that can move people and planet towards a better future for both. Panelists representing ecomodernist, degrowth, and other transformative change pathways will briefly present followed by a moderated discussion with each other and audience participants. Come join what promises to be a lively and enlivening debate!

Organizer(s): Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, Natalia Martínez Tagüeña, Víctor Manuel Reyes Gómez, Simone Lucatello, Juana Claudia Leyva Aguilera, Georges Seingier, Luis Carlos Bravo Peña, Salvador Narváez Torres, Sergio Armando Campos Villavicencio, Oscar Alberto Jimenez Orocio

Efforts to combat desertification and restore drylands social-ecological systems need novel learning environments that engage multi-stakeholder participation. Emerging partnerships are essential to accomplish the Sustainable Development Agenda of the United Nations. In 2017, a multisectoral group committed to drylands stewardship founded the ‘International Network for Drylands Sustainability (Spanish acronym ‘RISZA’) to foster novel transformative learning environments and co-generate useful knowledge with local transdisciplinary partnerships including academics, government representatives, civil society members, NGOs, and indigenous groups, for integrated drylands assessments, social-ecological conservation, restoration, and development projects, and for guiding adaptive management and policy development. RISZA’s operational framework was co-designed with Transdisciplinarity, Social-ecological System (SES), Interculturality, and Governance as main pillars. A long-term initiative that emanated from this framework is the ‘Social-ecological Participatory Observatories (SEPO)’ project. It generates novel spaces to collectively produce, compile, and exchange knowledge, bringing together interested stakeholders of a particular SES to jointly understand how to put resilience, adaptation, and transformative learning into practice in project co-design and co-development, and in participatory policy making to achieve dryland sustainability. The objective of this session is to share the experiences of different stakeholders linked to SEPO representative of diverse Mexican dryland contexts, and to motivate the implementation of similar transformative learning environments in other drylands worldwide. We will highlight how social innovations can generate enabling environments guiding fundamental change at the local scale. We propose to organize a participatory roundtable discussion on drylands stewardship, where i) we will share experiences on knowledge sharing and co-production, intercultural dialogue, and transdisciplinary research through the lens of smallholder farmers, indigenous groups, NGOs, government representatives, and early and mid-career researchers from different disciplines, and ii) the roundtable participants will engage in conversations with the audience to explore the type of social, policy, institutional, and behavioral shifts needed for dryland stewardship potentially facilitated by SEPO.

Organizer(s): Nicholas Magliocca, Emily Burchfield

The Anthropocene’s triple challenge of preventing biodiversity loss, mitigating the effects of climate change, and sustainably and equitably providing resources for a growing human population will make significant agricultural transformation both necessary and inevitable. Across the globe, agricultural stakeholders are turning these significant challenges into opportunities to engage in transformative adaptation towards more sustainable, just, and resilient agricultural futures. However, pathways for transformation in agricultural land systems remain broadly conceptualized and tangible examples of successful, co-produced efforts toward transformation are sparse. Although transformation is understood to be situated and contingent on local socio-cultural, political, psychological, and/or economic conditions, there are likely to be bright spots - or successful efforts to engage in transformative action - from which more generalizable insights, best practices, and inspiration can be drawn.In this interactive panel session, we welcome submissions from groups working with stakeholders to (1) understand, elevate, and amplify bright spots; 2) identify the most effective leverage points to move agricultural systems towards more desirable futures; and (3) co-produce pathways towards these futures. We are particularly interested in work that pioneers new methods to integrate “big” data with “deep” qualitative data to understand agricultural system transformation across multiple scales. Also of interest are examples of normative backcasting, futures thinking, participatory action research, or exploratory modeling approaches to deepen understanding of and/or implement transformative pathways in agricultural systems.

Organizer(s): Patricia Balvanera

In this session we will share the insights gained by our transdisciplinary collective Cocina Colaboratorio on how to weave different ways of knowing, doing and being towards more just and sustainable food systems. We work in three contrasting sites in Southeastern Mexico; one of them, Santo Domingo Tomaltepec is only 15 Km away from the conference site. Conference participants will sit at the table with some of the members of the communities of practice of Santo Domingo, to experience how we use artistic tools to seed and nurture the collective transformative agency of the diverse collectives. These collectives have been built around the kitchen, the agroecological plot, the living biocultural archive, the territory and the radio by young community chroniclers. We will share ingredients, recipes, and ways of doing to jointly prepare a dish in small diverse teams. We will reflect at each table about the different ways in which we foster transformative change. We will display the design tools, audios, booklets and papers that the collective has produced. The direct experience of person to person caring and reciprocal interactions in these diverse teams mediated by members of the leading team of the collective will highlight the roles that participants in the Global Land Program can potentially play in the transformation of local food systems around the world.

Organizer(s): David Barklin

The session would be organized as a roundtable discussion with the participation of knowledgeable people from different ethnic groups in Mesoamerica. Each of the participants is actively involved in the organization of social, political, productive and environmental activities, promoting strategies to consolidate alternatives for community and environmental well-being. They offer leadership in assuring that their traditional knowledge systems and world-views guide local decision-making and community organization, while also collaborating with others to build alliances on regional, national, and international levels. A tentative list of participants includes:

- Juan Carlos Sánchez Antonio, a Zapotec philosopher collaborating with communities, teaches at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca

- Eliseo Martínez Hernández, an Ayuuk (Mixe) with a degree in Community Development actively involved in promoting a diversified program of activities to diversify the productive base, involving new generations in assuming leadership roles as part of the personal of the local campus of the Autonomous Communal University of Oaxaca.

- Josefina Mata Ceja, a Cora school teacher actively involved in consolidating community activities integrating care of a marine environment and socio-political institutions to assure collective well-being.

- Jaime Martínez Luna, a Zapotec anthropologist, was instrumental in creating the Autonomous Communal University of Oaxaca and its first Rector. He is widely respected for having systematized the concept of “communalidad” (together with his Ayuuk colleague Floriberto Díaz), an indigenous formulation of Oaxacan cosmovisions.

- Aldegundo González Álvarez, a Masewal (Nahua) who has played a key leadership role in the Union of Cooperatives Tosepan, the largest formal indigenous organization in Mexico who collaborated in the 2 volume Codice Masewal that explains the central role of the cosmovision Yeknemilis in the group’s 45 year history.

- Luis Fernando Jerónimo Juárez, a Pure´pecha economist (in the central Mexican state of Michoacán), participates in the community of Cherán following its dramatic declaration of autonomy from organized crime in the region and from the institutional tethers that limit people’s ability to govern themselves to promote local well-being and environmental balance.

Organizer(s): Claudia Heindorf

Global challenges, such as biodiversity loss and climate change, underscore the need for the sustainable transformation and restoration of landscapes. People often develop profound emotional connections to specific landscapes, cultivated over extended periods of land use and management. Relational values encompass diverse connections between humans and nature, such as place attachment or the spiritual meaning of a place. These values are crucial to consider for effective landscape planning, serving as both motivators and barriers to participation in landscape transformation and restoration projects. Understanding relational values helps identify landscape conflicts and fosters community engagement for sustainable landscape transformation. Researchers often use in-depth interviews to elicit relational values and assess value plurality. However, there are other emerging and more engaging research methods we want to explore with the workshop participants. For example, participatory and art-based research methods enrich the exploration of relational values. These methods do not only show promise for research projects but are also intriguing for practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of people and landscape connections. Throughout the workshop, we plan to discuss and present two or three different value elicitation methods (e.g., poetic inquiry, photovoice) that we have applied within our research group. The workshop will begin with method introductions and the presentation of case study experiences, followed by practical exercises allowing participants to explore the methods independently. Towards the end, we will engage in discussions on the different methods and activities, encouraging the sharing of experiences.